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OUTLINES 



wmmi iCBi 



"^-^^ '• By W. H, PAYNE, A, M„ 



PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 




ADRIAN : 
CHARLES HUMPHREY. 

1862. 






COl'YKIGHT 

BY WIIvLIAM II. PAYNE. 

1882. 



Adrian Times Presses. 



PREFACE. 



In 1879 I caused to be printed for my special use a 
" Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Science and Art of 
Teaching." More recently I have felt the need of an outline 
in my more advanced course of instruction in this University; 
and I have accordingly revised, and, to a considerable extent, 
rewritten the " Syllabus," and now present it to the public 
under a new title. 

My purpose has been to formulate, provisionally, a body 
of educational doctrine. Though I have bestowed no incon- 
siderable amount of time on these few pages, I am very far 
from thinking that my work merits any special considera- 
tion. The only thing that I can give myself any particular 
credit for is an honest endeavor to throw into form certain 
truths bearing on education that I have borrowed from all 
available sources — history, philosophy, and educational liter- 
ature. My collections have not been made at random. For 
many years I have held a general theory of education that has 
been growing more and more into articulate form; and in 
my borrowing I have selected the doctrines that are con- 
current with my views. 

While trying to present a consistent body of educational 
doctrine, I may not have escaped the influence of the " per- 
sonal equation." I will not leave the reader to discover the 
fact that I am not in full sympathy with the modern educa- 
tional reformers. It is plain to me that the reform move- 
ment in educational thought is a reaction against certain old- 
time errors; and that, consequently, it pushes to an unwar- 
ranted extreme certain phases of a complex truth, and at the 
same time ignores the complementary phases of the same 



ii PREFACE. 

truth. The new system errs by exaggeration and by exclu- 
sion. It makes far too much of some things, and leaves out 
of account other things of co-ordinate importance. I sympa- 
thize with the injured party in this controversy, and so I 
may unconsciously give too much emphasis to my conserva- 
tism. I confess my disgust with the current cant about 
"following nature," with the extreme pretensions set up in 
favor of oral instruction and original investigation, and with 
the laissez-faire policy in general. 

As to the nature of educational science, I am sorr}^ to find 
myself disagreeing with some writers whose names are justly 
deserving of great consideration. I can not believe that we 
have everything to discover de novo, that the world's greatest 
thinkers have investigated the principles and methods of 
elementary training to no purpose, and that at this late day 
we must leave it to nurses and mothers to lay the foundations 
of this new science by a purely inductive study of infant life. 
On the contrary, it seems to me that education is chiefly an 
applied science; that by far the greater part of the materials 
needed for its construction already exists; that its mode of 
procedure must be largely deductive; and that the duty of 
the hour is to collate and co-ordinate the truths that already 
exist, but are in their present state, the disjecta memlra of 
a new body. At least, let us take a careful inventory of what 
we now have before we address ourselves to the work of dis- 
covery. 

This Outline embodies my idea of the kind of instruction 
that should be given those who are to be really helpful in 
the line of educational progress. It may be that a training 
in the mechanical process of the school room is the best thing 
that can be done for certain classes of teachers. Personally, 
I have but little faith in mere methods. Mechanical routine 
is already too firmly established in the school room ; and it 
would seem that this evil could only be aggravated by a per- 
sistent training in processe"S and methods. But however 
this may be, and I concede that the current belief and prac- 



PREFACE. iii 

tice are both against me on this point, I feel sure of one 
thing — that there is an undoubted need of a class of teachers 
who have been instructed in doctrines, whom truth has made 
free, who have become emancipated from routine through an 
insight into guiding and fruitful principles. 

The mtroduction of education, as a philosopliy and a his- 
tory, into university studies, is of easy justification. "No 
rational plea," says Herbert Spencer, " can be put forward 
for leaving the Art of Education out of our cui^riculum. 
Whether as bearing upon the happiness of parents themselves, 
or whether as affecting the character and lives of their chil- 
dren and remote descendants, we must admit that a knowledge 
of the right methods of juvenile culture, physical, intellectual 
and moral, is a knowledge second to none in importance. 
This topic should occupy the highest and last place in the 
course of instruction passed through by each man and 
woman. * * * * Xhe subject wJiich involves all other 
subjects, and therefore the subject in which the education of 
every one should culminate, is the Theory and Practice of 
Education^ 

Simply as a branch of human knowledge. Education is at 
least of co-ordinate importance with Entomology and Geolo- 
gy; and especially when discussed in its historical and phil- 
osophical aspects, is equally worthy of a place in a univer- 
sity curriculum. When we add to this consideration the 
obvious fact that the higher places in the teaching profession 
must always be recruited from the colleges and universities, 
there need be no hesitation in following the precedent of the 
German Universities where Pedagogics has long been taught 
along with the chief departments of general knowledge. 

The assumption necessarily underlying university instruc- 
tion in Pedagogics is that pupils so instructed will be able, 
on occasion, to evolve, each for himself, an art out of a cor- 
responding science. When a science has been adequately 
comprehended it is an art in posse and will become an art in 
esse in the presence of actual experiences. Nothing is more 



iv PREFACE. 

sterile than a mere rule or method, nothing more fruitful 
than an underlying principle. Versatility can alone cope 
with the free movements of spirit; but with respect to 
versatility, rule is the letter that kills, principle the spirit 
that vivifies. The teacher who goes to his work provided with 
specific methods will start promptly but will not grow much ; 
while the teacher who is grounded in principles will start 
slowly, will sometimes stumble, but will soon grow rapidly, 
and, better than all, will continue to grow. It is not to be 
presumed that all who study a doctrine will succeed in 
evolving an art out of it. To do this requires a type of mind 
that all do not possess. But such persons have no valid call 
to teach. They are predestined to work with their hands 
and not with their heads. 

University instruction in Pedagogics is quite outside the 
field of normal school work. There can be no competition, 
and hence no rivalry, between universities and schools of 
secondary instruction. Students who would come from them 
to us could not. Students who might go from us to them 
would not. They teach an art. We, if true to our mission, 
must teach a science, — a body of general knowledge. We can 
not have practice schools if we would. They are so much 
occupied with instruction in subjects, and their pupils are so 
preoccupied with lower studies, that the abstract study of 
educational science is out of place. Those who would pre- 
pare for the ordinary work of the school room will continue 
to attend the normal schools. The few who would become 
versed in the doctrines of education, and have passed beyond 
the secondary schools, must be instructed in the universities 
if instructed at all. 

W. H. PAYNE. 

University of Michigan, 

Sept. 1, 1882. 



Table of Contents, 



Sec. )). 

1. The (jEnewis of the Teachinc Art, 1-6 3 

2. Akt and Nature, 7-17 6 

3. The Mutual Relations of Science and Art, . . . 18-22 9 

4. The Nature of Educational Science, .... 23-29 11 

5. Education as an Ideal, and Education Under Limita- 

tions, 30-37 13 

6. On the General Nature of Mental Culture, . . 38-52 iti 

7. The Law of Extremes, 53-59 19 

8. The Doctrine of Transitions co-cg 22 

9. On Language and Words 67-74 25 

10. On Organization and Government, 75-85 27 

11. Fitness for Teaching, 86-97 32 

12. On the Advantaoes and Disadvjvnta(;es of the Teach- 

er's Calling 98-107 35 

13. School Management— I. Organization, .... 108-113 38 

14. School Management— II. Government, . . * . . . 114-121 40 

15. School Management— III. Instruction, .... 122-128 43 

16. The Recitation 129-136 46 

17. Contrasts Betaveen the Old Education and the New, 137-145 47 

18. Criticism of Principles 146-153 51 

19. The Doctrine of Method 154-166 54 

20. A Theory of Presentation, 167-172 59 

21. Some Antagonisms, 173-I8O 63 

22. Motive, Will, Concentration and Acquisition, . . 181-190 67 

23. On Memory as Related to the Process of Elabora- 

tion 191-197 71 

24. The Educational Value of Studies, 198-206 75 



The Genesis of the Teaching Art, 



1. Every art has a history, because it liad a beo^inning 
and niaiiii'ests a progress. 

Every well developed industry presents three phases for 
study, — (1) it is a series of processes constituting an art; 
(2) it has a history; and (3) a philosophy. 

The history of an art is important, because it exhibits the 
direction and rate of progress by establishing two fixed 
points, (1) what has heen and (2) what is; and because it 
guards us against the repetition of mistakes, and allows us 
to profit b}' the expei'ience of others. 

When an art lias become self-conscious, and progress is to 
be nuide purposive rather than instinctive, a third point 
must be determined, — what ought to he, or what 7i%ay he. 

Rational progress in an art, then, requires a body of doc- 
trine, a philosopliy, an ideal end. 

2. An excessive regard for precedent and ti-adition gives 
rise to the conservative or to the retrogressive spirit; M'hile 
an engrossing attachment to ideals gives rise to the radical 
spirit. 

Each of these extreme tendencies of human thought is 
partial and misleading. True progress must be out of the 
past into the future.'^ 

Two principles will give steadiness to our opinions: 

1. Whatever course of policy has received the long sanc- 
tion of the good and the wise has a large measure of truth 
in it. 



1. *■• 111 order that we may share hi what men are doing in the world of intellect, 
we must share in what they have done. In order that we may walk onwards, we 
must feel the ground solid under our feet. * * * The past alone can make the 
present and the future intelligible."— ( Dr. WheiveU). 



4 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOOTIUNE. 

2. " The suppression of every error is commoiil}' followed 
by a temporary ascendency of the contrary one." — {Spencer.) 

3. In primitive times, the functions of ruler, priest, phy- 
sician, teacher, etc., were exercised by the same individual; 
but in progress of time, by the division of human labor, 
these offices became distinct. 

"The earliest schools were thobe of the pi'iests;" and the 
priestly office and the teaching office were conjoined till 
modern times.'-' Chapel exercises, church schools, and the 
common feeling that a college president should be a clergy- 
man, are survivals of this ancient custom. 

Two important consequences resulted from the union of 
church and school : an extreme reverence for mere authority 
in all "open questions," and even in matters of fact; and 
the monopoly of the written or ])rinted text in the process 
of instruction. 

The "new education " represents a reaction against author- 
ity and against instruction by written text. 

4. Teaching has now become a lay occu})ation; but 
there is not yet a distinct teaching class. Teaching is not 
yet a profession. 

Characteristics of professional labor: 

1. The interests involved are of the liighest order. 

2. It belongs to the category of intellectual employments. 

3. It belongs to the higher class of intellectual employ- 
ments, requiring great learning and the exercise of reason, 
judgment and taste. 

4. It requires peculiar skill and knowledge, attainable only 
by the few. 

5. Professional knowledge must be iscicn title rather than 
empirical. 

6. Professional, labor is that fur which men set themselves 
apart for life. 

7. A profession otters to men o^ talent and learning the 
hope of a career. 



2. *" Historiquement, r I'cole a ete dans toii.s les payes la lille de \' Eglise. Aiiisi. a 
r origlne, toute t'cole fut-elle forcement confessioiiiiclle."" Die. de la PedagOKic, l 
^re Partie, p. 4:3. 



GENESIS OF THE TEACHINO ART. 5 

Teaching; iiow fulfills the first three of these conditions. 
In o^eneral knowledge, the teacher will not differ materially 
from any well informed man or woman. The peculiar 
knowledge (tnethod) needed by teachers is gained incident- 
ally during their own pupilage; it is not scientific, but em- 
pirical. Teaching, for the most part, is an avocation. 

5. With reference to fitness for teaching, public opinion 
has exhibited three successive and progressive phases of 
thought: 

1. General scholarship was thought to be fitness for teach- 
ing. This phase of thought is embodied in the legal require- 
ments for obtaining a license to teach, and is widely current 
to-day. 

2. General scholarship plus an empirical knowledge of 
method was next held to constitute fitness for teaching. The 
normal school and the institute are the exponents of this 
phase of thought. In most states the law permits intend- 
ing teachers to attend normal schools and institutes. 

3. General scholarship, a knowledge of methods, and of 
the principles and laws on which they rest, are now held to 
constitute true fitness for teaching, so far as studied prepa- 
ration can give it. The exponent of this phase of thought is 
the establishment of chairs of education in universities.^ 

Three things are essential for success in teaching: 

1. Natural ability; 2, experience; 3, acquired ability. In- 
struction cannot overcome the limitations that may appear 
under 1 and 2; but it may fortify the teacher against them. 

H. The course of events is now towards the formation of 
a teaching pi-ofession. 

The evidences of this are: 1, the increase of normal 
schools and the better orgaTiization of institutes; the estab- 
lishment of chairs of education in universities; essays 
towards formulating a body of educational doctrine; and 
the introduction of questions in the theory and practice of 
teaching into examinations for a license. 

3. ♦At this date, such chairs have been established in Englisli-speaking countries 
as follows : Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews ; of Cambridge and Lon- 
don ; of Missouri, Towa and Michigan ; and Harvard. 



OUTLTNES OF EDUGAriONAL DOCTRINE. 



Art and Nature, 



7. The term Nature is used to designate the whole sys- 
tem of creation, terrestrial and celestial, exclusive of the 
works of man. In a narrower sense, it designates the un- 
known source of life, movement, and progress on the earth, 
exclusive of whatever is done by human agency. Under 
this conception the earth is regarded as an animated organ- 
ism, working towards predetermined ends. The upheaval 
of a continent; the projection of lava from a volcano; the 
march of a pestilence; animal and vegetable growth; the 
phenomena of decay and death; etc., etc., are the volitional 
acts of " Nature." 

8. Man himself is included under the works of " Nature;" 
but whatever has been done by man that "Nature" herself 
could not have done, is set apart and included under the 
term "Art." A creek, and a tree that accidentally spans it, 
are works of " Nature;" but a canal and a bridge are works 
of "Art." 

9. Anciently, the unknown causes of striking phenomena 
were personified utider such names as Jupiter, Vulcan, Juno 
and Ceres; but these divinities of the older mythology have 
been displaced, and now in their stead we have the goddess 
"Nature," in whom are united tlie attributes that were once 
ascribed to particular deities. Physical science has long 
since rejected this fiction; l)ut it holds an imposing place in 
education, where it is a term used to sanction processes that 
are recommended for adoption. '• 



4. *" Nature being a sort of gockless— and that a favorite one— by iiscribing to tliis 
goddess whatsoever was regarded by him (Condillac) as good, he seems to liave sat- 
isfied himself that he had proved the goodness of it ; and by so concise an expedient 



AUT AND NATURE. 7 

10. "Nature," meaninor the established order of thin<j;s 
minus huiiian interference, has been set up as tlie ideal 
educator whose processes we are to imitate. Thus Joseph 
Payne says (Lectures, p. 45): " How does nature teach? 
She furnishes knowledge by object lessons;" "She makes 
her pupil learn to do by doing;" "She gives him no gram- 
mar of seeing, iiearing, etc.;" "She adopts much repetition 
in her teaching;" "She teaches (juietly;" "She does not 
continually interrupt her pupil;" etc., etc. 

11. By the same school of writers, Art, as distinguished 
from "Nature," is an evil that has- introduced countless ills 
into education, and is therefore to be sedulously shunned. 
Thus Rousseau (Emile, p. 1) says: "Everything is good as 
it comes from the hands of the Author of nature; every- 
thins: degenerates in the hands of man." 

12. "Nature" is not the beneficent goddess and the in- 
fallible guide that the modern theorj' of education assumes. 
Jf " Nature " cures, she also kills; if she is kind and provi- 
dent, she is also heartless and wasteful. Of herself, she is 
incompetent to produce an edible potato; much less a man 
tit for the difficult requisitions of his environment. 

L3. The actual state into which man is born is not a state 
of nature; but of nature transformed and improved by hu- 
man art. In an atmosphere purged of some of its poisons; 
in lands reclaimed from thriftless "Nature;" in roads and 
bridges; in society and government; and in innumerable 

—an expedient in the eniiiloyment of wliicli he has fonnd liut too many snccessors, 
as well as contemporaries and predecessors,— he has saved himself no small quantity 
of trouble. 

" Nature Is a sort of fictitious personage, without whose occasional assistance it is 
scarce possible (it must he confessed) either to write or speak. But, when brought 
upon the carpet, she should be brought on in her proper co.s/^/Hw-nakedness : not 
bedizened with attributes— not clothed in eulogistic, any more than in dijlogisfic. 
moral qualities. Making minerals, vegetables, and animals— this is her proper work ; 
and it is quite enough for her : whenever you are bid to see her doing ?nan's work, 
be sure it is not Nature that is doing it, but the author, or somebody or other whom 
he patronizes, and whom he has dressed up for the purpose in the goddess's robes." 
— Bentham, Chrestomatkixi. pp. .333-.S34. 



8 OUTLINES OF EDCCATTONAL DOCTRINE. 

ways that need not be named, each ojeiieration is born into a 
richer patrimony that it can not alienate. In the prepara- 
tion of man's abidinc^ place. Art has become a 'co-ordinate 
factor witii N^ature. 

14. In tilings pnrely intellectual, there is no way to re- 
lease the child from the ready-made productions of art and 
remand him to the hands of "Nature.'' "Classifications, 
which we are unable to form for ourselves, are, from the 
earliest dawn of intelligence, given' to us, already formed b}^ 
others. The child, in learning to give names to the objects 
placed before him, and to repeat those names at each recur- 
rence of the objects, learns, unconsciously to himself, to 
perform tlie arts of reminiscence and generalization, along 
with that of sensation, and advances by imperceptible de- 
grees to a definite consciousness."' — (Mansel, Metaphysics, 
p. -15.) 

15. In the nomenclature of the new education'- the term 
"order of nature," has an important role; a process has an 
adequate sanction when it is supposed to be in accord with 
the " order of nature." This phrase, like its parent " Nature," 
has not been defined by those who are so fond of employing 
it; but if we may be guided by the ordinary signification of 
words, it means the order of creation, or the order of human 
experience or of human progress as a whole, unaffected by 
the intervention of art. (1) From idea to term, from the 
concrete to the abstract, are instances of the " order of 
nature." And in the same sense, (2) from astrology to 
astronomy, from alchemy to chemistiy, from sorcery to 
medicine, are other instances of the same kind. In another 
department, (3) the cave dw^elling of primitive man, the hut 
of boughs, the log cabin, the framed house, is an "order of 
nature," 



5. *Tliroughout these lectures I use this term to denote the system of instruction 
due to the recognized educational reformers,— Ratke. Comenius, Rousseau. Pesta- 
loz7.!, etc. ; while the system it displaced I call tlie old education. 



MUTUAL RELATIONS OF SOIENGE AND ART. 

16. Cases 1 and 2 are instances of what Mr. Spencer calls 
"the Genesis of knowledge in the race" (Education, p. 
122); and he would have us believe that " the education of 
the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with 
the education of mankind as considered historically." At 
best this is but a '' bold fiction." "We can not educate a child 
after this manner if we would, for we can not sequester him 
from the ameliorations of human art; and it would be a 
very absurd thing to do, even if it were possible to do it. 

17. We may grant that in its historical genesis knowl- 
edge was first concrete, then abstract; but it does not follow 
that the child must always observe this sequence. In the 
"order of nature," the idea doubtless preceded tlie term; 
but neither logic !ior force can compel a child to observe 
this sequence. There is no ])rinciple to determine an estab- 
lished sequence as between idea and term. Provided they 
both come, it is not material whicli comes first. 



The Mutual Relations of Science and Art, 



IS. The term art is employed in three senses: 1. in 
distinction from nature; 2, in distinction from science; and 
3, as applied to architecture, painting and sculpture. In 
this lecture, art is contrasted with science. 

19. "The principles which art involves, science evolves." 
— ( Whewcll.) 

Even the simplest process is based on the relation of cause 
to efi'ect. It therefore eml)()dies, involves, or implicates some 
permanent unifoi'mity or law. It is tlie province of science 
to evolve and explicate this latent uniformity or law. The 



10 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

law of chemical combination is involved in the kindling of a 
tire. Chemical science will bring this latent law into clear 
consciousness, and then discover its presence in other phe- 
nomena. 

20. "Science consists in knowing; art in doing." — 

{Encyclopcedia Brit.) 

Art is satisfied with actually attaining a desired end, as 
when a smith welds two pieces of metal; science demands 
to know the reason of the process, and is concerned with the 
actual result only as it exempliiies a law. The chemist may 
never have welded two pieces of metal, and may never care 
to do so, but he knows the law that makes this process 
possible. The smith can perform the process, but can not 
explain it; the chemist can explain the process, but may 
never have performed it. 

21. In every process, in every ))henomenon, there are 
these two phases, the one outward and sensible, the other, 
inward and latent. The fili-st 3'ields a lower order of knowl- 
edge, easily attainable; the second a higher order of knowl- 
edge, attainable with difKculty. 

These two orders of knowledge may be cultivated in entire 
independence of eacli other; and by a natural predilection 
most minds choose one ]ihase to the neglect of the other. 
But the ideal knowledge is attained when practice has been 
guided, inspired, and perfected by theory; and when theory, 
in turn, has been connected and perfected hy ])i-actice. Among 
the advantages that art may derive from science are the 
following: 

1. The power of re- vision and of pre- vision. 

2. The ability to invent and to reconstruct. 
8. Inspiration and versatilit3\ 

4. The transit from cause to effect may be shortened. 

5. The inward satisfaction of woi'king in tlie light and in 
an open field. 

22. A science, being a corajiact body of docti-ine, can be 
comprehensively taught*; while an art, being indeterminate 
in the variety and number of its cases, cannot be completely 
taught. 



6. * " The whole of every science can be auule the snbject of Xa-Aithmg."— Aristotle . 



NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 11 

"We ma}' teacli the j)riiiciples of science and leave each 
student to form for himself liis own art, to teach himself 
how to employ these principles in practice." — {Thomson.) 

The most economical way to teach a liberal art, is to teach 
it iirii^licitly^ through the principles of its correlative science. 
A science is an art in posse,' and experience is the occasion 
for its becoming an art in esse. A mind incapable of ft)llow- 
ing the lead of a clear idea, is incapable of doing any work 
of high quality. 



The Nature of Educational Science. 



23. We have long had an art of education, but a cor- 
relative science of education is only now in process of actual 
formation. We iiave methods, maxims, and processes, but 
no generally accepted criteria for testing their value. 

Among tlie reasons why tlie theory of education has lagged 
so far behind the practice of education, the following may 
Ije mentioned: 

1. Teaching has been merely an avocation, and therefore 
teachers have not felt a sufficient interest ar.d zeal to induce 
them to make a scientific study of their art. 

2. The results of malpractice are either masked or are very 
slow in appearing; and in consequence public attention is 
not strongly drawn to the need of a rational practice. 

3. There has been a very ofeneral scepticism as to the need 
and even as to the possibility of a science of human training. 

2-i. Education is a composite science, and in that division 
of it which treats of the conditions of growth, it assumes 
for its lirst principles the laws that have been established in 
other branches of scientific inquiry. 

As education has mainly to do with the mind, educational 
science will derive the greater number of its principles from 



12 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

psychology and logic. Next in importance is mental physi- 
ology, as furnishing the laws explaining the dependence of 
mental activity on physicial conditions. 

This phase of educational science is purely deductive. 
Certain psychological and physiological laws being assumed, 
methods of procedure may be drawn from them, and thus a 
system of rational practice established. 

25. The science of education must consider not only the 
laws of growth, but as well the kinds of ailment that promote 
and sustain this growth; it thus has subject matter of its 
own, to be supplied by those who cultivate it. The educa- 
tional value of studies; the action of examinations; plans of 
organization; school legislation; examination and supervision 
of teachers, etc., are items that constitute a second depart- 
ment of educational science. 

26. On these questions, generalizations may be reached 
either by a rigid inquiry into the nature of each subject, or 
by a careful study of the effects that have followed certain 
modes of procedure. In both cases the method of study is 
inductive. 

Occasions for the use of the inductive method are not 
limited to the above cases. Methods, maxims, and processes 
that have been proved useful in practice must embody some 
elements of scientific truth; and the inductive study of these 
will serve to confirm or to modify the generalizations that 
are assumed under § 24. 

27. It is the opinion of some that education is a science 
of observation, — that it must be constructed de novo by an 
inductive study of the phenomena of infancy and childhood 
as they are observed by parents and teachers. This opinion 
seems to assume that there is one psychology for childhood 
and another for maturit}^, and that we are to take no stock of 
the progress already made in mental science. 

It seems as reasonable to assume that we as yet know 
nothing of infant digestion, — that adult phj^siology has no 
direct bearing on the hygiene of children, and that it rests 
with nurses and mothers to found an infant physiology. 



EDUCATION, IDEAL, AND UNDER LIMITATIONS. 13 

28. Any theory that regards the progress from infancy 
to maturity as other than a process of insensible transition, 
that preserves a perfect continuity of organic action and 
growth, is full of mischief. 

While the scicTice of education requii-es some degree of 
inductive research, the characteristic method of procedure is 
that of deduction. Some laws of mental activity and growth 
have been settled beyond dispute; and rigorous deductions 
from these laws would furnish our new science with its 
longest and best chapters. 

29. It is not at all probable that any important discov- 
eries are to be made in the science of education. In this 
field of inquiry it is safe to assume that, " Whatever is true is 
not new, and whatever professes to be essentially new is not 
true." The thing of first importance is to take a careful 
inventory of the educational doctrines left us by inheritance; 
and then to form a consistent doctrine out of them, after 
having subjected them to a close criticism. The student of 
this science should not say, " I am of Comenius, or of Pesta- 
lozzi, or of Froebel, or of Spencer;" but, eschewing all cant, 
and placing minor dependence upon mere authority, he 
should accept truth wherever found, and repudiate errors 
and sophisms whoever may have sanctioned them. 



Education as an Ideal, and Education Under 
Limitations, 



30. Education, in its absolute sense, is a process that 
aims at realizing the typical man. 

Among trees we observe various degrees of perfection as 
to form and structure; and in estimating the degree of 
perfection we compare the given specimen with a typical 



14 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

tree of its kind. We conceive that eacli tree of a species is 
fashioned after an ideal — a perfect and invariable pattern ; 
and the ideal cultivation of a tree would consist in causinir 
it to grow into its typical forni- 

Every animal of a given species, as a horse, approaches its 
type in a greater or less degree; and the ideal ti-aining of an 
animal would consist in having it grow into the type of its 
kind. 

In man there are numberless degrees of physical perfection. 
At one extreme there is unsightly deformity, at the other 
divine beauty, and between, an ascending scale of infinite 
gradations. In mind, the range is from imbecility to 
inspired genius, with countless gradations between. In 
morals, the slow ascent is from the monster to the saint. 
In each of these three orders of growth, the ascent is 
towards an ideal type; and the sphere of education, as a 
conscious art, is to lead man up to the typical perfection of 
his physical, mental, and moral being. 

31. The type towards which education aspires is a mental 
creation. The best specimens that come under our notice 
are imperfect; and to the ideal that is formed from the 
aggregate of the highest observed excellencies the mind adds 
something of its own to complete the type. 

32. All human beings are under the law of ascent 
towards a typical form. This is their law of growth. The 
natural education of man takes place through the unassisted 
action of this law; just as a plant, when abandoned to itself, 
will undergo a fortuitous growth. This natural education is 
the typical education in onl}'^ one respect: an ujnvarcl ten- 
dency in the line of growth. 

33. Unless the term " nature " is made to include the 
modifying and determining effects of human intelligence, 
the dogma " follow nature " is an absurd and mischievous 
rule. 

Unassisted ''nature" is as incompetent to produce the 
ideal man as the ideal peach. 

34. Education in the absolute sense above illustrated, has 
been thus defined: " The harmonious and equable evolution 
of the human powers." 



EDUGATrON, IDEAL, AND CNDER LIMITATIONS. 15 

This conception of education is subject to tlie followino- 
limitations in practice: 

1. It comprehends the wliole period of lite, from the cradle 
to the grave, while in practice the period of education is 
limited to a few years. 

2. It involves physical, mental, moral, and religions train- 
ing, while the etfoi'ts of the actual educator can scarcel}' 
extend beyond the training of the intellect. 

3. It aims at the perfection of the human being as a whole, 
while the exigencies of life require men to be trained for 
specific duties. 

35. Under these limitations education becomes nearly 
synonymous with instruction, and may be defined as a process 
having three purposes: 

1. To develop the intellectual faculties, so as to produce 
robustness of mind and habits of ready and accurate think- 
ing. 

2. To furnish the mind with knowledge for use. 

3. To impart skill in the use of instrumental knowledge. 

36. The difference between education in its absolute sense, 
and education under its practical limitations, may be illus- 
trated as follows: 

1. If a tree or a shrub is needed for a special use, as for a 
hedge, the cultivator abandons the typical foi-m and deter- 
mines the growth into a modilied form. Whenever one part 
of a vegetable, as the root, the flower, or the seed, becomes 
especially valuable, the idea of sj^mmetrical growth is aban- 
doned, and this part is given an abnormal (unnatural) 
growth. 

2. In training a horse, instead of aiming at the most per- 
fect specimen of his kind, the horseman may train him for 
the race-course, or the plow, or the saddle. A modified form 
is found more useful, and so the typical form is abandoned. 

3. There is an antagonism between man as an ideal of his 
kind, and man as an instrument of service; and education is 
forced to depart from her ideal in order to fit man for the 
limitations under which he lives. To make a lawyer, or a 
carpenter, there must be some departure from the course of 
training that would lead up to the typical man. 



16 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

■i. By reason of the limitations of time, education, as a 
practical art, must abandon formal physical and moral train- 
ing, riiysical soundness must be a postulate, and direct 
moral and religious training must be relegated to the family 
and the church. 

37. A liberal education aims at the ideal perfection of the 
mind. Its purpose is to give it all possible perfection as the 
instrument of thought; at furnishing it with knowledge the 
most fit for the man; and at training it to a dexterous use of 
all its energies. 

A professional or technical education either supplants or 
supplements a liberal education. It is either the instrument 
alone, or the man first and then the instrument. 



On the General Nature of Mental Culture, 



38. Mental culture is a growth by means of aliment. 

The tree is involved in the seed; the seed becomes a tree 
by a process of evolution or development, by a process of 
growth carried on by means of the elaboration, transforma- 
tion, and assimilation of food into structure. 

39. The mind of the child difi'ers from the mind of the 
adult, as the blade differs from the full corn in the ear; and 
the evolution of the one into the other is accomplished by 
the elaboration, transformation, and assimilation of knowl- 
edge. 

40. There is a close parallelism between physical growth 
and mental growth, — between the elaboration and trans- 
formation of food, and the elaboration and transformation 
of knowledge. 



GENERAL NATURE OF MENTAL CULTURE. 17 

Both processes of growth have common characteristics, as 
follows: 

1. Material susceptible of transformation into structure. 

2. The apprehension of this material. 

3. An automatic organ of transformation. 

4. A process of disintegration succeeded by a process of 
assimilation. 

5. Some residuum^ structural or dynamical. 

Both processes of growth are subject to modifications and 
derangements from two general causes: 1, quantity and 
quality of aliment; 2, the condition, constitutional or acci- 
dental, of the elaborating instrument. 

The several phases of each process of growth are not 
simultaneous, but successive and progressive. Time is there- 
fore a factor of first importance. 

41. Between material and residuum there are these gen- 
eral relations: 

1. The products of growth are determined, to a consider- 
able extent, by kinds of aliment. 

2. Growth is proportional, not to the absolute quantity of 
aliment, but to the quantity that is actually assimilated. 
Excess of aliment weakens by overtaxing the digestive 
function; scanty aliment weakens by privation of nourish- 
ment. Growth is normal when the supply of aliment is a 
little short of the demand for it, — when appetite acts as a 
gentle and constant stimulus. 

3. In processes of growth, aliment loses its identity; and 
whenever this transformation does not take place, — whenever 
the residuum discovers material in its original condition, 
growth has been imperfect. 

42. As to the organ of transformation, these things are 
to be noted : 

1. In its normal state it is always active, either in esse, or 
ui posse, — it is either reacting upon material that has been 
brought within the sphere of its energies, or is in a state of 
tension, ready to act whenever material is presented. 

2. This functional activity being automatic, is also uncon- 
scious; or is unconscious to the extent to which it is auto- 
matic. 



18 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOUTMINK. 

43. Wliile types of growth remain constant, progressive 
modifications of these types take place through modifications 
of aliment, and are then transmitted by inheritance. 

44. Mental culture is that process by means of wliich the 
thinking instrument is perfected and furnished througli the 
elaboration and assimilation of knowledge. 

45. Minds difi:er very greatly as to vigor, robustness, or 
power. This quality is, in part, a fact of inheritance, but is 
capable of cultivation to an indefinite extent. From what- 
ever source derived, it is a permanent factor of the mental 
organization. 

40 By mental furnishing, two things are meant: 

1. Mere knowledge, or matter of fact; things carried by 
the memory. 

2. Acquired mental arts, by which specific ])rocesses are 
performed. 

A man of robust muscle, provided with suitable tools, may 
make a horseshoe; or, native energy of mind may employ 
remembered words and phi'ases in fashioning an argument. 

47. The first phase of mental culture included under 44. 
is termed discipline, and is given by education; tiie second 
is called instructitm, atid falls within the province of ^teach- 
ing. 

48. There can be no education except through processes 
of instruction, and every process of instruction has some 
educational value; but either purpose may be pursued so 
exclusively as to overshadow the other. 

Education is tonic or constitutional in its action; instruc- 
tion, specific or local. Education regards the mind's fitness 
or ability to do; instruction, the thing done. 

49. So far as the process of mental culture involves the 
organic functions of the mind, it is natural,' but so far as it 
depends on the selection and pi-eseutation of knowledge, it 
is artificial. 



THE LAW OF EXTREMES. 19 

oO. Willi the orsranic functions of the mind there can be 
but little direct interference; but the products of mental 
growth may be modified, and to some extent determined, by 
selecting the material upon which the mind is to react, and 
by modes of presentation. 

51. Education viewed chielly in its artificial phase becomes 
a process of manufacture, and induces an exaggerated esti- 
mate of books and of verbal memory; while viewed too ex- 
clusively as a natural process, it reduces the teacher's duty 
to scarcely more than non-interference. 

52. The old education was occupied with the artificial 
phase of culture; the new education embodies a reaction 
against the old-time error, and in turn falls into the opposite 
extreme of overestimating the natural element in niental 
culture. 



The Law of Extremes, 



53. A certain mode of fiuctuation in human opinion is 
so uniform that it may be called a law. It is a matter of 
common observation that "one extreme follows another;" 
that when one phase of a complex truth has so engrossed 
attention as to obscure a complementary phase, and thus to 
introduce obvious errors into practice, there is a recoil 
towards the neglected truth, and so towards errors of an 
opposite character. So there is an oscillation of opinion 
through longer or shorter periods of histor3\ This law is 
thus formulated by Spencer (Education, p. 102): "The 
suppression of every error is commonly followed by a tem- 
porary ascendency of the contrary one." 



20 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

The error referred to in this law consists in disproportion, 
or in exaggeration; of two co-ordinate factors of a complex 
truth, each, in turn, is allowed to overshadow the other. But 
truth of some sort is always embodied in these oscillations 
of opinion ; and we may expect the movement to end in the 
conception of a larger truth, that will embrace two smaller, 
but co-ordinate truths. 

54. This law is the key to the history of education. 
Educational reform has always expressed a recoil from some 
disproportion or exaggeration, and has moved steadily towards 
some disproportion or exaggeration of an opposite kind. 
An all-in-all is reduced to a nothing, by being overshadowed 
b}^ a new all-in-all. It was Pestalozzi's boast: '* I have 
turned quite round the European car of progress, and set it 
in a new direction;"* and the fundamental maxim of Rous- 
eeau was: "Take the road directly opposite to that which is 
in use, and you will almost always do right. "f 

55. It was once thought that human nature is essentially 
bad, and that it must be made over by artificial means. A 
modern conception is that the natural impulses are in them- 
selves good, that they have a spontaneous tendency towards 
self-perfection, and that the most they need from human art 
is direction. 

Human nature being essentially bad, its appetencies were 
to be distrusted and counteracted. The child was not to have 
what he liked, but was made to have what he disliked.** The 
child's likes and dislikes are now thought to be the surest 
indications of what he ought to have, or not to have; and 
the final test of schools, methods, and studies, is the amount 
of pleasure that the pupil derives from them.ff 



♦Quoted from Joseph Payne's Essay on Pestalozzi. 

tQuick, Educational Rfformers, p. 98. 

7. **" It was no part of the plan (in the girls' school at Port Royal) to make ta.sks 
easy and agreeable : that would be a culpable indulgence of human depravity. 
Deceived by her ascetic beliefs, and disposed to see in the most innocent pleasures 
the germ of perdition and the root of evil, Jacqueline Pascal recommended her 
pupils to devote themselves to the tasks that were most repulsive to them, because 
the service that will please God the most. Is that which will please them the least." 
— Compayre, Hlstoir<' CYi/ique des Doctrines de V Education, I., pp. 2J^-28.5. 

ttSee Spencer, Education, pp. i08-9. 



THE LAW OF EXTREMES. 31 

56. Both in discipline and instruction the principle of 
authority was dominant in the older school. Punishments 
were frequent, liarsh, and often cruel; and the testimony of 
the senses, and of the individual reason, were discredited in 
favor of the bare assertions of a recoo^nized authority.* 
Authority in all forms is now greatly discredited. In disci- 
pline, force has given place to advice and persuasion; and in 
matters intellectual, the pupil's knowledge is to be measured 
by what he has verified in his own experience. " Your 
pupil," says Rousseau, " is to know nothing because you 
have told it to him, but because he has himself compre- 
hended it: he should not learn science, but discover it." 

57. Instruction by the printed text, was once the char- 
acteristic method of the schools. " Children had lesson- 
books put before them at between two and three j'ears." 
(Spencer.) The modern dogma is that oral instruction is 
the typical method, the text-book being at best only a neces- 
sary evil.f 

58. In the olden schools a very large use was made of the 
memory, and learning by rote was universal. Memorizing 
has now fallen into discredit, and in many cases into disuse. 
It is thought to be extremely un-Pestalozzian to commit to 
memory what is not understood. 

59. Minor instances of thi§ law are the following: From 
instruction in the abstract, to instruction in the concrete; 



8. *" Aristotle teaches that the sun is uicorruptible. At the time when the dis- 
covery of spots on tlie sun began to circulate, a student called the attention of his 
old professor to the matter, and received this reply : ' My friend, I have read Aris- 
totle twice from beginning to end, and I know there can be no spots upon the sun. 
Wipe your lenses better. If the spots are not in the telescope, they must be in your 
eyes.' "— Naville, La Logique de P Hypothese, p. 17. 

9. t" Three results may be produced by the right application of the oral method 
of teaching : (l) It will establish those relations between the pupil and the object 
of his thouglits as will enable him to acquire a knowledge of that object ; (2) it will 
occasion such activity of the pupil's mind as will produce mental culture ; and (3) it 
will produce a good method of acquiring knowledge, and of applying it in the affairs 
of life. ***** Not one oy these three results loas ever secured by written teach- 
ing! '"—J. W. Dickinson, Premium Essay, pp. 16-17, 



23 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

from much formal grammar, to none of it; from classics and 
no science, to no classics and much science; from books with 
no illustrations, to books surcharged with pictures; from 
school rooms that were hovels, to school rooms that simulate 
drawing-rooms. 

For each of these contrasts there is a middle term that 
reconciles two seemingly antagonistic doctrines. It is neither 
one thing, nor its opposite; but both in due proportion, ur 
each in its appropriate place. 



The Doctrine of Transitions, 



60. There is a very important doctrine in practical educa- 
tion, never yet discussed in a formal way, to which 1 can 
assign no better name than The Doctrine of Transitions. 
The law to be illustrated has several phases, but they seem 
to be the corollaries of a general proposition that ma}' be 
stated as follows: 

The typical state of the child is dependence, the result of 
his weakness; the typical state of the man is independence, 
the result of his strength; and life is a gradual, almost 
insensible transition, from the first state to the second. 

61. The gradual merging of the first state into the second, 
may be illustrated by this simple diagram: 



nidependeuce. 
IJependence. 



The infant is the most helpless of young animals; man, 
in the maturity of his physical powers, has a most wonder- 



THE DOCTRINE OE TRANSITIONS. 23 

fill ability to react against the material forces that tend to 
destroy him. The progress of the physical life is a transition 
from servitude to nature, to a domination over nature.* 

62. The senses dominate in the child, making him the 
creature, and often the victim, of mere impulse and instinct; 
but through the gradual development of reason and reflec- 
tion, the man becomes a law unto himself. The child feels 
and observes; the man reasons and reflects. 



Reflection ; Reason. 



Sen.se ; Impulse. 



63. As the child is under the law of dependence, his 
modes of conduct must be imposed on him from without, 
by his superiors and guides; as the man lives under the law 
of reason, his modes of conduct should be prescribed by 
principle. In the progress from infancy to maturity, the 
domination of the lower law gradually yields to the domi- 
nation of the higher. 




" Government hy Precept. 



64. In all phases of this law of transition, there must 
come a period when the two opposing factors approach each 
other in strength. These are periods of conflict and of dan- 
ger. In the history of civilization these are the periods of 
revolution; in moral history, they are periods of reform. 

In the individual, the same facts are apparent. In morals, 
there is implicit faith, and rational faith; but, during the 
transition from one to the other, there intervenes the period 
of doubt. 



10. *" Life," says Bichat, " is the sum total of the functions that resist death.' 



24 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

The same phenomenon is observable in the history of 
science. Ignorance favors unanimity, so does exhaustive 
inquiry; but between these two extremes lies the field of 
discussion and dissension. 

05, The influences of this law in practical education 
deserve special study, for here is the source of some of those 
previsions that art may borrow from science. For example, 
the 1st grade and the 12th grade are the poles of good order, 
— order secured by mere authority, and order which is, to a 
large extent, the outgrowth of reflection ; while the 6th and 
7th grades furnish the turbulent spirits that put the teacher's 
power of discipline to the test. 

66. Also in the pupil's progress in knowledge, independ- 
ence gradually supplants dependence. At first the pupil 
must receive help in large measure, in order that he may 
gradually learn the art of self-help. He must first listen to 
the words of the living teacher, but he finally draws the 
most of his knowledge from the silent language of books. 
This is the transition from oral instruction to instruction 
from the text. 

^_ ' Instruction from Books. ^r. 

o' .t; 

c - 

~ Oral Instruction. -—I S 



Analogous to this is the transition from presentation in 
the concrete to presentation in the abstract; this is the con- 
sequence of the transition from sense to reflection. Sense 
intuition is the typical mode of instruction for the infant; 
the resolution of the abstract into the concrete is the typical 
•node of instruction for the man. 



Instruction in tlie Abstract. 



"^ Instruction in the Concrete. ":—- ~ — |S 



ON LANGUAGE AND WORDS. 



On Language and Words, 



67. Next in importance to thought itself, is Languaire. 
the medium by wliich vve think, and by wiiich we express 
our thought. 

One distinguishing trait of man is his capability of thought; 
and the measure of his greatness is the influence he wields 
through the expression of thought. 

As instruction can be given only through the medium of 
language, the Philosophy of Language is a topic of flrst 
importance to the teacher. 

68. Language is a system of symbols that, by association, 
recall conceptions, and serve to throw them into new combi- 
nations, thus giving rise to np:w" thoughts. These symbols 
also serve to record thought; and are thus instrumental, botii 
in thinking and expressing thought. 

The use of algebraic symbols is a familiar illustration of 
the ofKce of words.* 

New thoughts are new combinations of old ideas; and 
language conveys thought only in the sense of inducing some 
new arrangement of elementary notions. 

69. Words, to be significant, require two conditions: the 
mind must recognize them as conventional signs; and must 
already hold their proper contents. 

The value of a bank check depends on two conditions: its 
genuineness must be recognized; and the funds it demands 
must be on deposit. 



11. *" Language, like algebra, furnishes a system of signs, which we are a'ole to 
employ in various relations without at the moment being conscious of the original 
signification assigned to each. But what our thoughts thus gain in flexibilty. they 
lose in distinctness, and the logical and algebraical perfections are thus in an inverse 
ratio to each other."— Mansel, Metaphysics, p. t»8. 



36 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

The words of a strange language are unintelligible, because 
they are unrecognized — they have not been associated with 
their proper contents. Words may be unintelligible to 
children, because they are the symbols of ideas as yet un- 
known. 

70. "Words become significant, in the lirst instance, by 
associating them with the impressions received through the 
senses. 

These are the elementary notions that serve for all subse- 
quent processes and products of thought; the highest fancies 
of the poet, and the profoundest meditations of the philoso- 
pher, are but combinations and transformations of these few 
simple ideas. 

The child acquires these elementary notions through 
experience, through the spontaneous exercise of his senses; 
it is the province of art to associate each of these notions 
with its conventional symbol. 

In densely populated towns, where children are cut off from 
the opportunity of using their senses in the ordinary way, 
"object teaching" serves as a means of instructing in the 
qualities and names of objects. 

71. In the usual order of human experience, words come 
to us empty, and wait to be tilled with meaning. 

Usually, words are not made significant by explicit defini- 
tion; but their content is gathered by degrees from the con- 
text. 

Words may be made significant, by actually associating 
them with objects, by definition, by description, b}' illustra- 
tion, by pictures, etc. 

72. In reading, or in listening, our minds are thrown into 
the same intellectual state as the mind of the author or the 
speaker; and these processes are perfect, when the concep- 
tions evoked in our consciousness are the exact counterparts 
of those that possess the mind of the author or the speaker. 

In reading, we retrace the thought of the author; and if 
we read worthily, we are brought into some measure of 
equality with him. 

A noble book is an inspiration, a guide, a companion, a 
friend. 



ORGANIZATION AND GOV E UN ME NT. 3T 

73. By expressing thought, we classify our ideas, and 
thus give exactness to our knowledge. 

As we construct, we must sort our materials, selecting the 
fit and rejecting the unfit. 

An indispensable factor in all good instruction, is this 
reproduction of thought. 

T-t. Translating is the exchanging of symbols. As it 
involves a knowledge of the contents of words, it tends to 
heighten their significance; and as it involves a judgment 
of relative fitness or unfitness, it develops the faculty of 
problematic reasoning. 



On Organization and Government, 



75. An organization ma}" be defined as a correlation of 
]:»arts working together towards a predetermined end. As 
ai)plied to human institutions, an organization involves the 
following essential ideas: a pi'edetermined end; a determin- 
ing mind; a co-ordination and subordination of parts; and 
executive authority. 

A State is an organization whose predetermined end is the 
good of its citizens; the determining mind is the law-making 
])ower; the parts to be co-ordinated and subordinated are the 
human wills owing allegiance and duty; and the executive 
authority is the constitutional ruler. 

The nature of the predetermined end prescribes the mode 
of organization. 

As the end is one, the determining mind must be one. 

The law or condition under which the integrity of an 
organization can be maintained, is obedience to authority. 

As disobedience is an element of disintegration, it must 
be overcome, in the last resort, by force. 
4 



28 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOOTlilNE. 

Eesistance to the normal working of an organization, when 
not due to io^norance, has its origin in the human will. 

One will may be brouoht under the control of another, 
througli the following motives: affection; gratitude; respect; 
fear. The last motive is the lowest, and should never be 
employed, save as a last resort, when all the others have been 
tried and have failed. 

Success in government, as a conscious art, turns on the 
deft manipulation of motives. The psychology of this sub- 
ject will be discussed under paragraph 181. 

76. It is the function of government to maintain the 
integrity of an organization, and the agency it employs is 
law. 

Through various causes there is in every organization a 
tendency towards disintegration; the centrifugal force ever 
tends to surpass the centripetal. 

The penalty imposed for a violation of law, supplies an 
artificial motive for obedience. 

The ideal government is that in which the force needed to 
secure obedience, is reduced to its mitiimum; in which the 
motive to obedience is spontaneous, not artificial, iu)t im- 
posed from without. 

The " discipline of consequences" is prescribed by those 
who deprecate government by authority. This is said to be 
"nature's" method of discipline. For children it is too 
severe, and would often prove fatal; for adults it is too slow, 
too uncertain and too mild. 

77. The ideal government is thus self-government; and 
this is attained by the individual when the law of personal 
conduct is one with the general law of the organization of 
which he is a ])art. 

Self-government is conditioned as follows: on perfected 
intelligence; on. j^erfected moral development, or on the sul)- 
jection of passion and impulse, to reason and conscience. 

Children are not capable of self-government, because their 
mental and moral culture is but rudimentary; their conduct 
must be determined, in a great measure, bv artificial motives, 
by the decisions of a stronger and authoritative will. 

Adults are presumjitively capable of self-government, 
because of their opportunities for mental and moral culture; 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT. 29 

tiieir conduct ouo-ht to be detenniiied from within, by prin- 
ciple. 

78. In childhood, the j^ctvernina^ force is from without — - 
authority; in matui'ity, it is frotn within — princij^le; and 
during- the progress from childhood to maturity, oovernment 
by mere authority, should gradually give place to self-govern- 
ment. 

This law may be graphically illustrated as follows: 

^ i ~"~~~ — — - -^ . 

^ 1 Principle. >, 

o . .t: 

2 -2 

?5 Authority. '"^ - : g 



There is probably no period beyond mere infancy, in which 
children have not some power of self-control; and there is 
probably no period of mature life in which there is not some 
need of restraint from law or custom. 

Public opinion, and the influence of home, church and 
societ3\ are' integrating forces that act continuously and 
powerfully. Even a partial release from all or either of these 
external governing forces, teuds towards disintegration, as 
may be seen from army life. 

This law of conduct is as true of nations as of individuals. 
Rude societies can be held together only by being brought 
under the law ot authority. The progress from despotism 
to democracy, is a progress in culture. 

In nations and in individuals, the transition from govern- 
ment by authority to government by principle, is a period of 
conflict, of revolutions, and of reforms. 

Despotism is better than anarchy; and the character of 
the governed sometimes justifies a tinge of tyranny in the 
prevailing discipline. At what moment, or in what degree, 
to relax authoritative government, in favor of spontaneity, 
is a delicate and difficult question. There are many obstruc- 
tions in the path towards the ideal.* 

79. A school is an organization whose end is preparation 
for citizenship; the determining mind is the teacher; the 



*Bentlianrs Eationale of Punishment (London : 1S33), is a work tiiat may be studied 
with profit by all who are interested in the art of governing. 



30 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIOXAL DOCTRINE. 

elements to be brout;-lit into harmonious working are the 
wills of pupils, parents and ofticers, as well as needed materi- 
al appliances, such as books, furniture, apparatus, courses of 
study, recitations, etc.; while the needed authority is vested 
immediately in the teacher, and mediately in the governing 
body. 

A school should be organized with strict reference to a 
specific end. What is it to educate? What special form of 
education do the circumstances of time and place demands 

A school should have one responsible head, and but one. 

The prime law of school management is obedience to tlie 
teacher's authority. 

When compliance with the law of the school can not be 
secured through motives of alfection, gratitude or respect, it 
must be secured by the least degree of force that will accom- 
plish the object. 

The skillful management of the human will underlies the 
art of school administration. 

80. The purpose of school government is to preserve the 
efficiency of the school organization; and the agency it 
employs is law. 

As even the oldest subjects of school govej-nment fall short 
of maturity, the characteristic mode of control must be 
authoritative. 

Control by authority is made still more necessary on the 
following grounds: Uelease from parental authority and 
home inliuence; a tendency t(jwards insubordination, created 
by the association of children in masses. 

Schools of intermediate grade ai'e governed with the 
greatest difficulty. 

81. The type of school organization is military. 

From the causes already" mentioned, a school organization 
is always in a state of unstable equilibrium; there is a con- 
stant tendency towards disintegration. 

In an organization as complex as that of a school, and in 
which each duty must have its prescribed time and order, 
promptness of movement is a matter of first importance. 
Authority must be centralized, and the interval between the 



ORGANIZATIOX AND GOVERNMENT. 31 

g'ivint.' of an order and its execution, must be reduced to a 
niiniuuini. 

82. To save a school tVoni the evil effects of disobedience, 
tliat mild measures have failed to cure, one of two alterna- 
tives must be chosen: expulsion or punishment. 

Most schools contain three well marked classes of pupils: 
the habitually good, the tractable, who yield an instinctive 
obedience to their superiors; the unstable, whom vi^rilance, 
advice or admonition will easily control; and the positivel}' 
vicious, and even criminal, who defiantly and wilfully ob- 
struct the normal working of the school. 

What shall be done with pupils of the third class is not a 
question of sentiment, but of justice; the school must be 
saved from so dangerous an evil. 

S3. The question of corporal punishment turns on a 
single point. When all mild measures have been tried in 
vain, shall a vicious, disobedient pnpil be forced to obey? 

The easier, and, on the whole, the preferable course, is to 
adopt the alternative of expulsion. The school would be at 
once relieved from an element of disorganization, and the 
teacher spared the most disagreeable duty of his office. 

The practical objections to expulsion are the following: 
The danger of resorting to it too frequently; abandoning to 
their evil ways many whom wholesome discipline might 
have saved; the protests of parents wlio insist that it is their 
right to have their children made obedient. 

Most of the difficulties in school government would admit 
of easy cure, if parents and teachers were mutually helpful. 

8-1:. In respect of government, the school resembles the 
state more than it i-esembles the family. 

In both school and state there is an ever-present tendency 
towards disintegration, due to the strange influence of mere 
number. 

" The moral basis of family life," says Fitch, •' is affection. 
The moral basis of school life, as of that of all large com- 
munities, is justice." 

In both school and family the subjects of government are 
immature; the sense of futurity is therefore obscure, and 



32 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE, 

motives in idea are weak. In both cases, actual pleasure and 
pain must be the chief governing motiv^es. 

85. School punishments should be exemplary rather than 
remedial, in their first intent. Their first purpose should 
be to preserve the school organization, rather than to work a 
reform in the pupil's character. 

Under this view, a pupil may be punished, even though it 
be sure tliat lie will not be individually benefited; just as a 
murderer may be hanged for the state's sake alone. 



Fitness for Teaching. 



86. Fitness for teaching involves two factors: natural 
aptness and accjuired ability; under this last term is to be 
included the results of experience. 

Poeta nascitur, no7i Jit, is a general formula, Poeta, 
standing for lawj'er, merchant, physician, carpenter, teacher 
or farmer. Freely translated, the formula means this: Emi- 
nent success in any department of labor is conditioned on 
an innate predilection for it. 

" Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need prun- 
ing by study.'' — {Bacon.) 

87. Natural aptness for teaching is especially indicated 
by two qualities: the love of knowledge, and governing 
ability. 

He who is fond of knowledge and is conscious of possess- 
ing it, naturally desires to impart it to others. 

A school must be brought under the teacher's control 
before it can be successfully instructed. For some, discipline 
is easy, because it is natural; for others, it is diflicult or 
impossible, because it is unnatural. 



FITNESS FOR TEACHING. 33 

88. No one can become a good teacher who is not a good 
student. 

One chief purpose of instruction is to create and foster a 
zeal for study; but the teacher can not impart a warmtli that 
he does not feeL 

The teacher's knowledge should comprehend much more 
than the subject-matter of his daily lessons; and constant 
acquisition should be a law of his life. 

89. The good disciplinarian is one born to rule, one to 
whom has been giv^en a marked degree of co-ordinating 
and executive ability. 

The mind can not be instructed unless it be in a fit attitude 
or posture; but children, especially in masses, will not vol- 
untarily assume and keep this posture. 

Order, promptness, and respect for the proprieties of life, 
are among the best fruits of good instruction; they are 
invaluable both as an end and as means. 

90. Whatever be a teacher's natural ability, it should be 
supplemented and perfected by professional study. 

Society may as properly require a preparatory training of 
the teacher, as of the lawyer, the physician, or the divine; it 
has as clear a right in the first case as in the others, to pro- 
tect itself from empiricism. 

Professional teachers should be men of science; their 
power of prevision should enable them to construct wisely 
and well; and the power of revision, to reconstruct on a 
rational basis. This reconstructive ability should determine 
three things: existing defects; their cause, and their cure. 

91. Teaching is mainly an empirical art; manj^ of its 
processes are aimless, and many of its methods are irrational 
and absurd; it has scarcely an established principle, but its 
sources of ultimate appeal are tradition and authority. 

Familiar examples of contradictory methods may be seen 
in Reading and Geography. 

The general consequences of this empiricism are: waste 
of time, waste of material, and results poor in quantity and 
quality. 



34 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

92. The teacher's professional pre])aratioii is rational 
method. 

Iji point of mere learning^, the teacher is not (iistin<2^uis]i- 
ahle from the scholar; for ''The one exclusive siii^n tliat a 
man is thoroughly cognisant of anything, is that he is ahle 
to teach it." — {Aristotle.) 

It is not mere knowledge that forms the teacher, but 
knowledge methodically employed for predetermined ends. 

93. There are two grades of professional preparation for 
teaching, corresponding to two well defined grades of pro- 
fessional work. 

All who supervise the work of instruction require a 
knowledge of method as .hased on laia, or method with its 
explanation. 

For the gi-eater number of teachers, all the ])rofessioMal 
preparation that can now be expected, is dogmatical instruc- 
tion in method. 

94. Attendance on a good school is in itself a training in 
metliod. 

To be tiie subject of a teacher's art. is to unconsciously 
learn his metliods. 

Training in a school of a given grade, may unfit for teach- 
ing in a school of a different grade. 

95. Progressive self improvement in method is the dutv 
of evevy teachei-. 

The means of self-improvement are the following: the 
study of one's own practice with a view to its amendment; 
observing the methods of other teachers; the study of p]duea- 
tional Science through educational litei'ature. 

96. Technical preparation of the second grade may be 
made in normal schools. 

It is held by some that academic instruction is an essen- 
tial part of normal school training; that a teacher's knowl- 
edge should be of a different quality fVom that of a mere 
student. 

97. Professional instruction in the principles of educa- 



ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 35 

tiou and of teacliiiig, is now o-iven in some of the prinoii)al 
Universities of Great Britain and the United States. 

By "Science of Teaching" is meant a compact body of 
doctrine, cleai-ly defined, detinitely enunciated; not loose 
discussions on Psychology, having only very general and 
remote bearings on the art of instruction. 

The successful pursuit of this Science presupposes a con- 
siderable knowledge of Psychology and Logic; some degree 
of the philosophical spirit; and a mind already trained into 
habits of accurate thinking. 



On the Advantages and Disadvantages of 
THE Teacher's Calling, 



98. In some of its aspects. Teaching is a desirable em- 
ployment; there are valid reasons wh}' it may be deliberately 
chosen as a pernnment occupation. But there are also some 
disadvantages connected with it that ought to be attentivel}' 
considered. 

Befoi-e choosing a calling, its respective advantages and 
disadvantages should be carefully weighed. This will induce 
a more thorough preparation, will assure a greater amount 
of prospective l^enefits, and will forearm against incidental 
evils. 

!»l>. Teaching otters a wide field for doing good, and thus 
commends itself to the humane and the benevolent. 

''Getting on in the world '' is conditioned on intelligence 
and virtue. 

Litelligence involves a trained mind and a furnished mind. 

The gr(tunds of duty must be made clear to the intellect 
before a consistent and sufficient rule of life can be formed. 



36 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

The liabit of correct thinking is one of the surest safe 
guards against the ills of life. 

A love for reading and study, and a confirmed taste for 
investigation in any field of natural histor}', are most potent 
preoccupations against the encroachments of vice. 

The pleasures of a cultivated intellect and of a refined 
taste, are aniong the purest known to the human soul. 

100. Teaching offers an exliaustless field for self-improve- 
ment, and for those pleasures tbat are derived from the 
companionship of noble books. 

The prime element of a constitutional fitness for teacliing, 
is to be imbued with the scholarlj' spirit. 

The teacher will not onl}' gain knowledge for its own sake, 
but will delight in gaining that he may have the jileasnre of 
giving. 

AVith i-espect to breadth of scholarship, the general teacher 
has an advantage over the teacher of a s])ecial study. 

Teaching is favorable t(» the study of mental science, and 
to the c\iltivation of the })liilosopliical spirit. 

Teachers have rare opportunities for the independent study 
of educational science; theories may here be biought to tlie 
test of actual practice. 

101. Teachers, if worthy of their calling, find cordial 
admission to the society of the cultivated and the refined. 

The inspiration and help coming from this source are one 
of the chief consolations of life, one of its greatest bless- 
ings. 

Teachers should fortify the place now accorded them in 
society by continually raising the grade of their literary 
attainments. 

102. Daily association with inferior niinds, tends to lower 
the intellectual tone of the teacher. 

This is but the consequence of the general law that we 
insensii)!}- become like those with whom we associate. 

The necessary routine work of the school tends to ai-rest 
intellectual activity. 

The chief defense against this danger is the stimulus of 
books, and the inspiration that cojnes from intercourse with 
superior minds. 



ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. ' 37 

103. The habit of exacting obedience to his own will, 
tends to make the teacher dictatorial, arbitrary and intol- 
erant. 

From liaving his authority unquestioned, and his wishes 
and opinions implicitly respected, the teacher may uncon- 
sciousij' transfer to the world the prerogatives of the school. 

Where there is not inordinate vanity and self-esteem, this 
danger is counteracted by the thousand chagrins incident to 
the teacher's calling. 

104. The constant nervous strain caused by the annoy- 
ances of pupils, and the criticism of parents and the public, 
tends to ruin both health and temper. 

It is not the mere labor of instruction that exhausts, but 
the ceaseless worry of discipline. 

The remedies for this evil are recreation, absolute repose, 
and the consciousness of duty faithfully done. 

105. Their short and uncertain term of office, subjects 
teachers to the misfortune of a frequent change of residence 
and to consequent loss. 

This is one of the most serious disadvantages incident to 
the teacher's calling. Not to have a settled home, is an evil 
for which there is no adequate compensation. 

100. Quite generally, teachers have not the talent for 
accumulation; as a class they are somewhat improvident, 
and suffer many consequent ills. 

Those who become teachers do so from other motives than 
the hope of money-making; yet it should be the deliberate 
purpose of every teacher to secure a worldly independence. 

107. The teacher's best work can not be exhibited, and 
his merit is often unknown and unrewarded. 

The facts of organization and discipline, indeed, are pa- 
tent; but at best they are but means toward an end. Changes 
in character and in the intellectual life are gradual and un- 
obtrusive; and the fruits of good teaching are thus but 
slowly and imperfectly appreciated. 

Even a very perfect organization may count against a 
teacher's efficiency. A school may seem self-controlled, and 



38 our LINES OF EnUCATlOXAL DOCTETNK. 

may thus inspire tlie belief that no force is exerted or needed 
to keep it in working order. 



School Management, 



ORGANIZATION. 

108. School Manao-enient conijireliends all those means 
that are needed to make a school truly efficient; and the 
elements of this art may be discussed under the three fol- 
lowing heads: (1) Organization; (2) Government; (3) In- 
struction. 

A school must be organized in order that it may be in- 
structed; and it must then be governed in order that the 
organization may be preserved. 

109. A factor of first importance is the condition of the 
house and furniture; they should be so ordered as to secure 
the comfort, health and happiness of both pupils and 
teachers. 

The house and all its appurtenances, to begin with, should 
be made scrupulously clean, and then should be kept in 
proper order. 

In winter, the house should l)e generousl}', thougli care- 
fully warmed. 

Pupils should be shielded from impure aii* and from 
drafts. 

School rooms should be made attractive by means of 
pictures, house plants, curtains, etc. 

Seats and desks should be made as comfortable as possible. 

110. At the earliest possible moment, pupils should have 
some assigned work to do. 



I 



SGHOOI, .U AN AG EM ENT— ORG ANT Z AT TON. 39 

The openiii<j' slionld be as informal as possible. Tlie older 
pupils should have some deliiiite lessons to learn, and the 
younger should be called forward to read, spell, etc. 

At the close of the first day, the teacher should have an 
enrollment list showing the name and age of eacli pupil, and 
should know the membership of each class. On the second 
nnn-ning, he should have at least a provisional programme, 
and should assign a short but definite lesson to each class. 

There should be as few classes as j^ossible. There should 
be but one text-book on a given subject of a given grade; 
and classes in the same subject, though of different grades, 
should be consolidated whenever possible. 

111. As early as possible, there should be a definite pro- 
gramme, showijig the order of recitations and the duration 
of each. 

No specific rules can be given for determining the order 
of recitations, though the following partial rules are well 
founded: The youno-er jmpils should be first called to recite, 
so that the older may prepare their lessons; the lessons that 
require the greatest concentration of effort, sliould be learned 
and recited early in the day, or early in each session. 

The duration of recitations can be calculated from the 
following data: The entire time that can be devoted to 
recitations; the whole number of recitations. The quotient 
of the first divided by the second, will show the average 
length of each recitation. 

The recitations of the j^oungest children should be short 
and frequent. 

11:2. The evolutions of the school should be regulated by 
signals. 

The tap of a pencil on the table or on a bell, is all that 
need be desired for ordinary signals. The slighter the sound, 
if it be distinct, the better. 

Prompt obedience to signals should be required. Some- 
thing like military precision should be impressed on the 
evolutions of a school. 

Through a skillful use of signals, the movements of a 
school may be made almost automatic, so that in case of 
need, as in danger from fire, one will may govern the whole 
mass of pupils. 



40 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

113. The keeping of proper records, and the making of 
required reports, are essential parts of good school manage- 
ment. 

From the teacher's register, it should be easy to calculate 
the following items: absolute enrollment; average number 
belonging; average daily attendance; per cent, of atten- 
dance; average number of months of attendance. 

The records of a graded school should furnish the follow- 
ing additional items: average cost per capita for supervision; 
for instruction; for incidentals; total cost per capita. 



School Management. 



IT. 

GOVERNMENT. 

11-1. The (qualities needed by a good disciplinarian may 
be included under the terms firmness and good nature: 
suAviTER IN MODO, FORTiTER IN RE: "A hand of stcel in a 
velvet glove."* 

These qualities are rarely found in equipoise. Keen sjmu- 
pathies and abounding charity often encourage lax govern- 
ment; while firmness is sometimes the exponent of a iiarsh, 
unfeeling nature. 

Firm discipline is the easier and the more merciful; weak 
governments are proverbially cruel. 

115. The disciplinarian should be clothed with ample 
powers: i'ossunt, (^uia posse videntur. 

It is the certainty, rather than the severity of punishment, 
that is a terror to evil-doers. 



12 *0r, in another form : Sit ligor, sed non exasperans, sit amor, sed non ei/iol- 
hens. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT— GOVERNMENT. 41 

Discipline should be steadj^ and continuous, not intermit- 
tent or spasmodic. 

116. The foundations of <;^ood ^^overnment are justice and 
benevolence. 

That a school should be protected from the influence of a 
vicious pupil, is simply a matter of justice to the well dis- 
posed; and it is benevolence to the wron^-doer to be con- 
strained to forsake his evil ways. 

To be malevolent, passionate or revengeful in discipline, is 
to destroy its moral effect. 

117. The best system of e^overnment is that which reaches 
its ends indirectly: either by making obedience a matter of 
self-interest; or, by removing motives to such a distance that 
obedience seems a matter of self-choice. 

" Men must be taught as if you taught thetn not. 
And things unkjiovvn proposed as things forgot." 

Formal attempts to control the wills of pupils tend to put 
them in an attitude of antagonism. 

Among the indirect means of government are the follow- 
ing: the good will of parents; personal popularity; pleasant 
address; respect due to character and scholarship; preoccu- 
pation of pupils; pleasant surroundings. 

118. By a skillful use of the means just indicated, it is 
possible to govern without resorting to force. This is the 
ideal school government. But it implies two conditions 
very difficult to be realized: extraordinary powers of disci- 
pline on the part of the teacher; and pupils who are un- 
usually tractable. 

A school must be governed b}- some means; and if the 
teacher is incapable of employing the best means of disci- 
pline, or if the school will not accept them, then other means 
must be used. 

It is unwise and unsafe to base a system of government 
alone on what ought to he; the attention must not be with- 
drawn from the actual condition of things. 

119. Between these subtile governing forces, to which 
pupils unconsciously submit, and the infliction of formal 



42 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTIilNE. 

punishment, there is an intermediate stage of procedure, 
whei-e gentle, yet positive measures for reform should be 
employed. These are, advice; admonition; loss of privi- 
leges; restraint; f(_)rmal re])roof. 

Government by these means is still good government, and 
is that which prevails in most well ordered schools. Most 
teachers may make this tlieir main system of discipline, and 
most pupils require no harsher measures. 

There is the ever present danger that advice may degen- 
erate into vapid moral lectures; that admonition may become 
unheeded threats, and that forbearance may be construed as 
lax discipline. 

In the last analysis, the efficiency of this system of gov- 
ernment is based on the assumption that there is a power 
behind advice, admonition and forbearance, that must be 
i"es]>ected. 

120. AVhen all other means have failed, ])ersistent di.^- 
obedience, or conduct tending to destroy the general good Af 
the school, must be punished eithei" by expulsion or b}' chas- 
tisement; and if chastisement also fails, the last and only 
resort is expulsion. 

Corporal punishment should l)e intlicted only under extra- 
ordinary circumstances. It should be reserved for the gravest 
offenses; the fact of guilt should be absolutely without ques- 
tion; and there should not be a trace of vindictiveness or of 
anger on the ])art of the teacher. 

In the inlliction of punishment, two ends should be kept 
steadily in view: the reformation of the olfender; and the 
good of the school. 

By a just punishment of ottenders, good may come to a 
school from two sources: (a") it may be preserved from actual 
evils; and (b) its moral tone ma}- be raised l)y thus throwing 
into sharper outline the distinction between right and wrong. 

121. Home government and school government have cer- 
tain points of difference that should be very thoughtfully 
considered by teachers and parents. 

Children will necessarily have a greater deference for ]xi- 
rental authority than for a teacher's authority. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT— INSTRUCTION. 43 

At home, a child is a member of a small cominuiiity; 
while in school, he becomes a member of a much larger 
community. The multiplied relations growing out of this 
wider relationship, are favorable to irregularities of conduct. 

Parental training is cognizant of character rather than of 
conduct; while school training must take lirst and chief 
account of conduct. 

Home training can support forbearance and toleration, 
can afford to wait; but in school, disorder, disobedience, or 
revolt, will at once derange or suspend the working of the 
organization. Here delay is often dangerous. 



School Management. 



III. 



INSTRUCTION. 



122. Organization and Government are but means to- 
wards an end. This end is Instruction, or the furnishing of 
the mind with knowledge. 

The criterion by which to judge a school is not its mode 
of organization and government, but the quantity and 
quality of the instruction it furnishes. 

123. Instruction comprehends two ends: the perfecting 
of the mind as the instrument of thought; and the furnish- 
ing of the mind with useful knowledge: or, Formation and 
Information. 

It is an error to suppose that the mind is first to be 
"formed" and then "furnished." The truer conception is 
that it can be formed only by being furnished. 

Nor should any wide distinction be made between " dis- 
ciplinary " studies and " useful " studies. 
6 



44 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

All knowledge that has passed through the elaborative 
process is disciplinary, though the kind of knowledge deter- 
mines, to some extent, the kind of discipline. 

Whether a subject yields instruction alone, or instruction 
and discipline, depends on the manner in which it is taught. 

12'1. The type of instruction is text-book instruction as 
distinguished from oral instruction. 

The pupil should memorize classified portions of knowl- 
edge, and the teacher should treat these as texts to be ex- 
pounded and illustrated. 

Oral instruction is not a distinctive method; but should 
always supplement instruction from the text-book. 

Exclusive oral instruction is justifiable in cither of two 
cases: (a) when there is no proper text-book on the given 
subject; or (b) when pupils are not able to use such a book. 

125. The ordinary fault of text-book instruction lies in 
the lack of explication, illustration; the memorizing process 
is usually well done, but the elaborative process does not 
take place at all, or is very incomplete. 

Instruction is a process having two phases: receptive, and 
reproductive. Knowledge must not only be retained (mem- 
orized), but should be re])ruduced in a new foria^ or ex- 
pressed in other symbols. 

Verbal reproduction attests only accuracy of the memory: 
but reproduction under cJiamjc of fornix indicates some do 
gree of elaboration. 

The general pur])Ose of the recitation should be, to test 
the accuracy of retention, and to stimulate the ])rocess of 
elaboration, 

120. Good instruction will accomplish two grand ])ur- 
poses: it will ins])ire pupils with a desire to accumulate 
knowledge; and will stin)ulate the faculty of thought 
proper. 

The pupil is first instructed under a guide, in order that 
he may finally instruct himself. 

The mind is not a capacity to be filled, but a livini; or- 
ganization that is to be btimulated to increasing and more 
efticient self-activities. 



SCHOOL MANAGEMENT-INSTRUCTION. 45 

The thoUjOjht ever present to the wise instructor will be 
this: To what extent will these pn])ils continue to accumu- 
late and to think when this formal instruction ends? To 
what extent am 1 helpiui^ them to helj> themselves? 

127. The earliest instruction must necessarily be s^iv^en 
in the concrete; l)ut instruction in the concrete should give 
place to instruction in the abstract, to a degree measured by 
the pupil's ability to interpret language. 

The child's stock of ideas far exceeds his power of expres- 
sion; and when he enters school, he is in far greater need of 
words than of facts. 

At this period, instruction should be in the concrete, in the 
sense that ideas and symbols should be brought into direct 
contact. 

When the child of six enters school, lie has already ac- 
quired those elementary notions, by the permutation and 
combination of which he is to construct all his future mental 
acquisitions. 

When these elementary notions have been indissolubly 
associated with their appropriate symbols, the pupil is pre- 
pared to receive instruction in the abstract. 

Each science has its own peculiar language, is based on 
special elementary notions; and for the purpose of learning 
this language, the study of each science should be introduced 
by some instruction in the concrete. 

128. Two rules, faithfully followed, will lead to sound in- 
struction: in each subject, have a clearly defined purpose; see 
that each word recalls its appropriate idea, and each group 
of words its appropriate complex idea. 



46 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 



The Recitation. 



129. The general nature and jinrpose of the recitation are 
indicated by the word itself, which signifies the restoration 
or reproduction of what has been taken up by the pupil from 
his teacher or from his book. 

The process of knowing has two phases: the second of 
which is the necessary complement of the first. The first 
phase is that of getting, accpiring, apprehending, — accumu- 
lating the crude materials of thought; the second is that of 
restating, restoring, reproducing, — of mental construction, of 
comprehension. 

130. The social element in the recitation is a jiowcrful 
stimulus to exertion. The desire to maintain the good opin- 
ion of teacher and classmates is a very strong concentrating 
motive. 

131. Some of the special things the pupil should gain 
from the recitation are: (1) a clearer understanding of the 
subject matter; (2) a growing pleasure in the study; (3) a 
stimulus to self-activity ; and (4) the conversion of knowledge 
into faculty, habit, opinion, or culture. 

132. As a means towards these ends, the pupil should 
have learned some portions of the subject matter in an exact 
form, and should reproduce the substance of the lesson in his 
own language. The teacher should supply explanations and 
illustrations when needed ; should give some extension to the 
topic by additional information; and should keep up the 
organic nnity of the general subject by connecting the pres- 
ent lesson with those that have preceded. 



THE RECITATION. 47 

133. The qualities needed by the teacher are: Aptness 
to teach; interest in the subject; abundant knowledge; ability 
to hold attention ; quick perception of eye and ear; the ability 
to ask clear, pointed, and pertinent questions. 

134. Some of the qualities of a good recitation are: 
Lively attention, animatibn, anticipation; a thorough mastery 
of the assigned lesson; an intelligent reproduction of the 
thought; prompt and definite responses; good order. 

135. Some cautions to be observed: Lessons may be too 
long or too short; the teacher may talk too much or may give 
too much help; illustration may be carried to an extreme; 
formal reviews may be too frequent; inattention and disorder 
may destroy the value of the exercise. 

130. Some points in the mechanism of the recitation that 
deserve notice: The use of signals; calling and dismissing 
classes; position of pupils and teacher; order of recitation; 
attention ; assignment of lessons. 



Contrasts Between the Old Education and 
THE New. 



137. The preponderance given, first to Art, and then to 
Nature, in the work of Education, has given rise to two 
schools that may be distinguished as the Old and the ]Mew. 

The old education is the system that culminated, and the 
new the system that originated, o,t about the period of the 
Reformation. In a more restricted sense, the new educa- 
tion sometimes means the system that is opposed to the 



48 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

classical curriculum; and in a still narrower sense, is some- 
times used to designate the kindergarten system of primary 
instruction. I here use the term in its general sense. 

Both schools err by exaggeration; each is right in what it 
claims, and wrong in what it denies. Their points of con- 
trast may be exhibited as folh)Ws: 

138. The old assumes that man is to be brought to his 
most perfect state by artificial means. 

Tlie new assumes that man has within himself all the re- 
sources needed to attain his most perfect state.* 

The old doctrine is right in assuming that education is a 
work of art, requiring, for its greatest perfection, all the re- 
sources of human ingenuity and skill; but the new doctrine 
is also right in assuming tluit education is a natural process. 
The reconciliation lies in the tact that education is « 7irti?^r«Z 
2)rocess directed hy human art. Mere nature is as ])owerless 
to produce a man lit for the complicated duties of modern 
lil'e, as to produce a rareripe peach or a chronometer. 

139. The old regards education as a process of manu- 
facture. 

The new regards education as a process of natural growth. 

It is true that human beings are born with a predetermi- 
nation to grow, and that they will in time pass through suc- 
cessive stages of development, because the}' cannot resist this 
dominant law of their nature; but it is also true that this 
growth may be controlled, modified, helped or hindered, by 
human agency. 

140. The old makes mucli of authority, tradition, pre- 
cedent. 

The new confides. in liberty, natural law, development. 



13. *" Everything is good, as it comes from tlie liaiuls of the /lutlior of nature : 
everything degenerates in the liands of man. He forces one country to nourish tlie 
productions of another, one tree to hear tlie fruits of another ; he mingles and coii- 
foniids the climates, the elements, and the seasons ; he mutilates his dog, liis horse, 
and h:s slave ; he overturns and disligures everything; he loves deformity, mon- 
sters ; he will have nothing as nature made it, not even man ; man must he tniined 
as a horse in a riding school ; he must be bent to his fancy, like a tree in his gar- 
den."— JE>Hife. 



THE OLD EDUCATION AND THE NEW. 49 

Human progress is possible only on the condition that 
each generation profits by the experiences of the generation 
that has preceded; but a second condition is alike indispen- 
sable, — the new generation must, l)y its own resources, make 
additions to the capital it has received by inheritance. - 

141. The old magnifies the office of the teacher and the 
text -book. 

The new regards the teacher as only negatively useful, 
and the text-book as an obstacle. 

Books are indispensable in the work of education, because 
they embody the accumulated wisdom of the past; and 
teachers are even more indispensable, because a complicated 
art, like that of education, should be assigned only to skillful 
hands. But when l)ooks and teachers become more than 
helps, they are hindrances; they are valuable only as they 
minister to self-help. 

142. The old is devoted to the communication of accu- 
mulated knowledge. 

The new sets pupils to the task of rediscovery. 

Preceding generations have left behind vast treasui'es of 
accumulated knowledge that must be accepted as an inher- 
itance, and not ac(jnired by the endless toil of rediscovery; 
but there is also new knowledge to be accpiired by original 
discovery, — additions must be made to the capital that has 
been received as a legacy. ^ 

143. The old exalts the office of memory, but neglects 
the culture of the observing faculties. 

The new degrades the office of memory, but makes the 
culture of the observing faculties the basis of education. 

It is an obvious error to makeiiiemory a mere store-house, 
and especially, a store-house of unused material; but it is 
very certain that education can not h^i provident^ unless there 
is this reservoir of power. 

The power of accurate observation is an essential factor in 
education, and under the form t)f reflection, is one of the 
very highest functions of the mind; but the education that 
consists largely in mere observation is essentially superficial. 



50 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTIilNE. 

A weakness in modern education is the neglect of the 
memory. The immediate interests of the e_ye and the ear 
are abundantly cared for, but there is not a sufficient ])ro- 
vision, within the de])tlis of the mind, for the time to come. 

144. The old makes information the chief element in 
education. 

The new makes formation, or discipline, the chief element 
in education. 

The ideal education reijuires the fullest development of 
the thinking instrument and the most abundant supply of 
the choicest nuitcrial for thought. 

145. The rigors of the old education often made school 
life gloomy; that a study was repulsive, was an argument in 
its favor.* 

In the new education, the test of litness in the subjects 
and in methods of instruction, is the degree of pleasure that 
i>upils nuinifest. 

The old time sevei"ity. and the new time laxity, are both 
extremes that are to be avoided. A study is not good be- 
cause it is repulsive; but it may be both rejnilsive and good. 

The new doctrine of ])leasure-giving confounds work with 
play, and a surplus of energy with exhaustion of energy. 
Foot-ball may rei^uire more physical exertion than wood- 
sawing; but there is nu device by which the second can be 
made as agreeable as the lirst.f 



*See note 7, p. 20. 

14. t" We iiuist recollect that nil energy, all occupation, is either play or labor. 
In the former, the energy appears as free, or spontaneous ; in tlie latter iis eitlier 
conipulsorily put forth, or its execution so inii>e(lc(l by dilificultics that it is only 
continued by a forced and painful effort, in order to accomplish certain ulterior 
ends."— Hamilton, Metaphysics, p. C03-4. 



aiUTWISM OF PRINCIPLES. 51 



Criticism of Principles, 



14<i. '' Tlie education of the child must accord, both in 
iriode and arrangeuieut, with the education of mankind as 
considered historically; or, in other words, the genesis ot 
knowledge in the individual must follow the same course as 
the genesis of knowledge in the race." — {Spencer.) 

This is the most concise statement that has yet been given 
to the new theory of education; and the so-called "Pes- 
talozzian Principles " are but corollaries to this main proposi- 
tion. 

The characteristics of this "genesis of knowledge in the 
race," as stated by Spencer, are as follows: progress from 
the concrete to the abstract; it is a process of self-instruc- 
tion; it is pleasurable; it is one phase of the "method of 
civilization." — {Education, pp. 122-127.) 

Spejicer's interpretation of the "method of civilization," 
ignores the iirfiuence of accumulation, and of acquisition 
through inheritance. This method is not self-help alone, but 
self-help supplemented by accumulated capital. 

Because, historically, " every science is evolved out of its 
corresjwnding art," it does not follow that this order of in- 
struction should be followed in schools. 

Shall the pupil accept the generalization that "all the salts 
of lead are poisonous," on the authority of the text-book ; or 
shall he reach it through experiences with these several poi- 
sons? 

We are told that, " in the order of time," '' with the mind 
as with the body, the ornamental ])recedes the useful." — 
{Education, chap. I.) Yet so far is Mr. Spencer from com- 
mending this order of procedure, that he condemns the cur- 
i-ent mode of education because it is based on this historical 
order. 

Mr. Spencer's own method of instruction is to beo-in with 
abstract statements; yet this method is in complete disaccord 
M'ith " the genesis of knowledge in the race." 

7 



5-2 OCTLISES OF EIirCATIOXAL iMX^'THiyE 

14:7. '-Cultivate the faculties in their natural order — tirst 
form the mind, then furnish it."* 

This doorma is objectionable in two points: it assumes that 
"formation" is separable fnun "information:'' it makes a 
mischievous distinction between " disciplinary " knowledge 
and *' useful " knowledge. 

148. " Begin with the senses, and never tell a child what 
he can discover for himself." 

The spirit of this rule is excellent, though if it be con- 
strued literally, it is clear exaggeration of the truth. It i> 
evidently based on the assumption that the only real knowl- 
edge is that which the child acquires through his own 
personal experience. This is an error. *^ Knttwledge implies 
three things: 1st. Firm belief: 2d. of what is true: 3d, «»n 
sufficient grounds." — < WhaUly.\ 

A second error is the assumption that there is a s|>ecial 
efficacy in a long and tedious struggle with difficulties. 
Judicious assistance is wholly compatible with that self-help 
which the spirit of this rule enjoins. 

149. " Reduce every subject to it* elements — i»ne diffi- 
culty at a time is enough for a child." 

If this means tliat an object of simple structure should 
be presented before an object of complex structure, it is true; 
but if it means that the ultimate parts of an object should i)t 
presented in succession, and the idea of the whole reached by 
a synthetic effort, it is false. 

!.><•. " Develop the idea — then give the term — cultivate 
language." 

This dogma directly contravenes one of the ni«»>t ubvions 
and general laws of human ex|»erience. The moment a child 
begins to interpret language, his onJinaiy ]»rogrL'?> is fn>ni 
term t«.» idea, from word to content. 

Pestalozzi him>elf may Ite quoted against tiii? • TestH 
lozzian Principle." "There are cases. h« 'wever. in whirh Ian 
gnage may prece<le the idea.< that it expresses. The mere 
child commences by articulating a multitude of words to 
which, as a rule he attaches no meaning. Hut as the wo^d^ 



•This aiui Ihf i<*ll<iwiii^ " PeistaJuzziau rriiict|>lir!<!" are cupit;*! frutn SheM<in'« 
EltmtttttUTf iti*lnir0iuH, pp. 14-15. 



V.niTlClSM OF I'l!l-\('IPI.ES. 53 

tliiit lie liears are derived fn^ni the scenes of liis daily lite, 
there comes, sooner or later, a luonieiit when the idea comes 
to take possession of these words. This method, then, may 
be followed in the Janiriiajj-e lessons that are i>;iven the chikl 
to continue Ids develitj»nient. In my schools I caused lon«j- 
lists of Words to he learned hefore making- ])U})ils comprehend 
their meaninu." — i Pai-o/.. Hisfoirt- n/u'r. tU lo Pt(l(iyoyie, 
pp. 88s.4(».) ^ 

l.'fl. "Proceed from the known to the unknown — from 
the particular to the ofcneral — from the concrete to the ab- 
stract — from the simple tc» the more difficult." 

There is no psychological trround whatever, for erectiui;' 
the dogma, " from the concrete to the abstract," int(» a nni 
versal rule for the instruction of children. The moment a 
child, at home or at school, beii;ins to learn language, he be- 
gins to deal with the abstract; and henceforth his general 
law of progress is from the general to the particular, from 
the abstract to the concrete, from the sign to the thing 
signitied. 

Miss Edgeworth remarks, *' One of the earliest operations 
of the reasoning faculty is abstraction. * * * Young 
children call strangers either men or women; even savages 
have a propensity to generalize." The power to generalize 
certainly implies the power to interpret generalizations. At 
least, the ability to interpret language involves the ability to 
translate the general in terms of the concrete. 

lo:2. " First synthesis then analysis— not the order of the 
subject, but the order of nature." 

It is hard to believe that Pestalozzi ever committed him- 
self to so absurd a doctrine as this, a doctrine in direct con- 
tiict with one of the elementary principles of Psycholog}'. 
Or are the psychologists themselves wrong, in asserting that 
" The human mind proceeds from the confused and complex 
to the distinct and constituent, always separating, always 
dividing, always simplifying; and this is the only mode in 
which, from the weakness of our faculties, we are able to ap- 
prehend and to represent with correctness " i — (See Hamil- 
ton, Metaphysics, p. 4H9.) 

\')d. The New Education misinterprets three affiliated 
laws: (a) the " Order of Nature;"' (b) the *' Order of Civili- 
sation;" and (c") the "Genesis of Knowledge of the Race," 



54 OUTIJXES OF EDUOArWXAL BOVTHTNK. 

The " Ordei- of Nature " may mean: (a) the ordei- of crea- 
tion; (b) the general course of human experience; or (c) the 
organic mode of the mind's activities. 



The Doctrine of Method, 



154. The great law of progress may be comprehensively 
stated as follows: Iniieritanck sii'plkmented i5V individ- 
ual Ao<^uisrriON. 

In prehistoric times, a son who had inherited an arrow- 
liead was spared an amount of time and labor, that could be 
used in inventing some other useful implement. 

Each generation thus inherits the net results of the toils, 
sacrifices, inventions and discoveries, of all preceding gener- 
ations; and then, in turn, transmits these, with its own added 
accumulations, to a succeeding generation. 

155. For each generation of learners, there are two sources 
of knowledge, the already known and the knowable; for 
each generation of learners, there are two tasks, to compass 
desirable portions of accumulated knowledge, and to gain 
new knowledge by original discovery. 

The first of these tasks is the more important for the fol- 
lowing reasons: an acquaintance with the already known is 
a necessary preparation for original discovery; the present 
can be understood only through the past; all must become 
citizens, i. e., must accept places and duties in existing society, 
but only a few can devote themselves to original research. 

The contributions that most men make to existing knowl- 
edge are unconscious, consistingchiefly of new adaptations — 
new uses of old material. 

To a mind bent on acquisition, knowledge from either 
source is neiv; and the study of books may be as enthusiastic 
as the stud}^ of rocks. 



THE DOGTRTNE OF METHOD. 55 

156. The knowledo-e contained in books is einl)()dio(l 
cliiefly in j^eneral statements, absti-aet laws aiid classifications, 
'/. ^., complex wholes tliat must be resolved inti> parts before 
they can be understood and conii)rehended. 

This resolution can be effected oidy through tlie interpre- 
tation of symbols; and tlie clearness and exactness of the in- 
terpretation are dependent on the vividness with which sym- 
bols recall the ideas that they represent. 

Words are stimuli: they evoke past impressions and i-ecall 
ideas and images intrusted to the memory. Words are also 
signs, but signs to liim only who holds the secret of the thing 
signified. 

As words can recctll ideas but not convey them, language 
itself can not convey knowledge; it can only induce some 
new combination of old ideas. A writer or speaker can 
merely assist us in transforming our ideas. 

"The first use of language, is the expression of our Con- 
ceptions; that is, the begetting in another the same Concep- 
tions that we have in ourselves; and this is called teaching." 
—{Hohhes.) 

157. One grand ]iurpose of primary instruction should 
be to teach the art of interpreting language and expressing 
thought. 

Through the automatic, spontaneous exercise of his senses, 
the child has acquired numberless ideas, and his most urgent 
need is symbols in which to embody them, and by which he 
may express them. This need is supplied by spoken lan- 
guage. 

During the earliest period of formal instruction, sj'mbols 
of form should be substituted for symbols of sound — written 
language for spoken language. This is the child's introduc 
tion to the art of gaining knowledge from books. 

158. The type of school work is the acquisition of ac- 
cumulated knowledge, rather than that of original knowl- 
edge; the use of books rather than attempts at discovery. 

Experiment and observation should be systematically en- 
couraged, but for the purpose of giving vividness and accu- 
racy to the text book instruction, rather than to train origi- 
nal investigators. 



r.6 OUTLTXRS Oh' EDirC ATIONAL DOdTlllSK. 

"Oliject Teacliiiii^- " is vuluahle as it recalls tlie attention 
from synihols to the things symbolized, and not as a means 
(»t' conveyins^ new knowledge. 

l.")!*. As tlie typical work of schools is the imparting of 
accnmnlated knowleds^e, the teacher's typical method should 
be the Method of Instruction, as distinguished from the 
Method of Discovery. 

The Method of Instruction "applies when knowledge has 
ali-eady been accjuired and expressed in the form of general 
laws, rules, principles or truths." — {Jevons.) 

'•The Method of Discovery is employed in the actjuisition 
of knowledge, and really ccuisists in those processes of in- 
ference and induction, by which general truths are ascer- 
tained from the collection and examination of particular 
facts. ' ' — {Jerons. ) 

The Method of Instruction employs language as its chief 
agent, and has for its chief purpose to put the pupil in pos- 
session of desirable ])ortions of knowledge already acquired 
and systematized. 

The Method of Discovery repeats in brief, the process by 
which knowledge was originally acquired; it is inductive in 
its procedure and its purpose is to attain truth by redis- 
covery. 

The Method of Instruction regards accnmnlated knowl- 
edge as so much assured capital that is to be transmitted to 
a new generation of learners without the cost of re-discovery. 
The learner is to accept the greater part of this on trust; only 
a limited part can be verified by personal experience. 

The Method of Discovery assumes that the only real 
knowledge is that which is gained de novo, by personal expe- 
rience; and would have each child repeat in brief the his- 
tory of tlie I'ace. 

160. The Method of Discovery has necessary limitations 
that unfit it for the general purposes of instruction. 

If it be applied systematically and thoroughly, it would 
limit the child's acquisitions to a very few of the most ele- 
mentary notions. It would require several years' exclusive 
study b}" the Method of Discovery to attain a knowledge of 
Chemistry that could be secured by the ordinar}' method of 
instruction within a few weeks. 



THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. 57 

The Method of Discov'^ery is wholly inapplicable to His- 
tory, applicable only to a very limited extent to Geoe^raphy, 
and, in actual practice, only partially applicable to Mathe- 
matics and the Natural Sciences. 

161. While the typical method is the Method of Instruc- 
tion, the Method of Discovery should be employed for pur- 
poses of illustration. 

The Method of Discov^ery, by appealiiiiJ^ directly to the 
senses, excites interest and enlists attention. It is therefore 
useful in introducing pupils to a new science, and, at all 
stages, in sustaining interest and attention. 

The less the skill in interpreting language, and the weaker 

the power of reflection, the more necessary becomes the 

Method of Discovery. 

162. The Method of Instruction sets out with a deflni- 
tion, a classiflcation, a general law, an abstract truth, or a 
proposition, and then proceeds by way of explication, divis- 
ion. 

''In 'Plato's Kepublic,' one of the noblest examples of 
method, successive definitions of Justice are brought to the 
test and rejected; and then division preponderates, in the 
enumeration of the powers of the human soul, and of the 
classes in a state that answers to them." — ( Thomson.) 

The Method of InstructioJi is the classical method, the 
one employed by the great teachers of all ages for conveying 
ascertained truth. 

163. It has become a fashionable theory, that the Method 
of Discovery is the tjqie of school-room instruction; that the 
process of learning should be one of i-ediscovery; that the 
pupil is not to accept statements of fact or truth on trust, 
but is to rely on his self-activities and thus discover truth. 

For Mr. Spencer's statement of this doctrine, see jj 116. 

164. AdiMJtting it to l>e "a leading fact in human progress 
that evei'y science is evolved out of its corresponding art,*" 
it does not f(jIlow that this sequence must be observed by 
those who are now receiving their education. If this doc- 



58 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOGTPiTNE. 

trine were enforced it wonld lead to some very curious re- 
sults. 

105. " In education the process of self-development 
should be encourasced to the fullest extent." — {Spencer.) On 
this doctrine Mr. Bain remarks: " rnreasoning blind faith 
is indispensable in beginning any art or science; the pupil 
has to lay up a stock of notions before having any materials 
for discovery or origination. There is a right moment for 
relaxing this attitude, and for assuming the exercise of in- 
dependence; but it has scarcely arrived while the school- 
master is still at work. Even in the higher walks of uni- 
versity teaching, independence is premature, unless in some 
exceptional minds, and the attempt of masters to proceed 
upon it, and to invite the free criticism of pupils, does not 
appear ever to have been very fruitful. ''^^ 

l(irt. Mr. Bain's comment on '"the self activity of the 
learner," is as follows: '* That expression points to the 
acquiring of knowledge as little as possible by direct com- 
munication, and as much as possible by the mind's own ex- 
ertion in working it out from the raw materials. We are to 
place the pupil as nearly as may be in the track of the iirst 
discoverer, and then impart the stimulus of invention with 
the accompanying outburst of self-gratulation and triumph. 
This bold fiction is sometimes put forward as one of the 
regular arts of the teacher; but [ should prefer to consider 
it as an extraordinary device, admissible only on special 
occasions. "f 



*Education as a Science, pp. 95-n6. 
tEdncation as n Science, pp. 93-94. 



.4 THEORY OF PEE8ENTATI0N. 59 



A Theory of Presentation. 



167. The field for the exercise of the teacher's skill is de- 
termined by the artilicial phase of mental culture; and this 
phase involves chieliy the selection and presentation of 
knowledge. 

The mind has its predetermined modes of activity, its own 
organic functions, and. with these there can be no direct in- 
terference; but the products of thought, and their (quality, 
may be modified and determined by the selection and presen- 
tation of the materials of thought. 

It is impossible to frame an art of selection. Such an art 
can not be based on differences between the minds of chil- 
dren and the minds of adults, because in both cases the func- 
tional activities are the same in kind. Nor can such an art 
be founded, at present, on the characteristic educational 
values of specific subjects. It is doubtful whether these 
values, when accurately determined, can be included under a 
definite law. What shall be selected is a question of rela- 
tive fitness or unfitness, ease or difticulty, which given cir- 
cumstances can alone determine. 

168. But an art of presentation is possible, because the 
organic mode of the mind's activities is predetermined. 
Such an art may be based on the following psychological law : 

'•^Thejirst 2)i'ocedwre of the inind in the elahu ration o-f its 
knowledge, is always analytical. It descends from the 

wnoLE to its TARTS, frOVl the VAGUE tO the DEFINITE." 

{HarniltonJ') 

169. With only rare exceptions this doctrine has been 
held by the great psychologists from the earliest period of 
philosophy to the present day. Thus Aristotle says: 



*Lectuies on Metaphysics and Logic, Boston, istjs : Vol. I., p. 498. See also pp. 69, 
70, 368, 371, 469, 498, 500, 502-3. 

8 



60 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

"We ought, therefore, to proceed from universals to singu- 
lars; for tiie whole is better known to sense than its parts; 
and the universal is a kind of whole, as the universal com- 
prehends many things as its parts." 

This law is universal in its application : 

"Everything presented to our observation, whether exter- 
nal or internal, whether through sense or self-consciousness, 
is presented in complexity." — {Hamilton.) 

By "the elaboration of knowledge" is meant the working 
it uj) into structure, the incorporating it into an organic 
mental product. Assimilation must be preceded b}' a disin- 
tegration. It is interesting to note how the instinctive pro- 
cedure of humanity in the aggregate accords with this law 
of the individual mind, as seen in the division of labor and 
the evergrowing specialization of human industries. 

The phenomena of vision afford a good illustration of the 
law. The details of a landscape do not impress themselves 
upon the retina successively, but simultaneously. The first 
effect is a confused whole; the final result a clear whole. 
" Nothing appears to one clearer, " says Hamilton, " than 
* * that, in place of ascending upwards from the mini- 
mum of perception to its maxima, we descend from masses 
to details. " 

In the study of this doctrine we must distinguish between 
the practice of an art and the comprehension of a truth. 

170. Present knowledge in the form of wholes that 

ARE resolvable BY THE PUPIL INTO PARTS. 

This Law of Presentation does not discrimijiatc between 
concrete wholes and abstract wholes, because both fulfill the 
conditions of the psychological law. (P. 168.) 

Philosophically, it is as legitimate to present an abstract 
law or a general classification, as a concrete fact, because each 
is equally resolvable into constituent parts. 

Whether in any given case, the concrete or the abstract 
should be first presented, is merely a question of ability — 
whether the mind is able to make the resolution into parts. 

The ability to comprehend an abstract truth, i. e. to re- 
solve it into its concrete instances, is measured by the ability 
to interpret language; and this ability, in turn, depends on 



A THEORY OF PRESENTATION. 61 

the association of words with ideas, and on the power of re- 
flection. 

One leading pnrpose of primary instruction should be to 
associate ideas with their symbols, to make empty words full, 
to furnish pupils with a vocabulary. 

The application of the Law of Presentation illustrated by 
its application to Reading, Grammar, Geography, liistorj^, 
Geometry. 

171. The final procedure of the mind in the elaboration 
of its knowledge is always synthetical. It reconstructs into 
definite wholes the parts into which analysis had resolved the 
vague wholes of presentation. 

" Analysis and Synthesis, though commonly treated as 
two different methods, are, if properly understood, onl}' the 
two necessary parts of the same method." — {Hamilton.') 

"On the one hand. Synthesis without Analysis, gives 
a false science; on the other hand. Analysis without Synthe- 
sis, gives an incomplete science. An incomplete science is a 
hundred times more valuable, than a false science. * * * 
The ideal of science, the ideal of philosophy, can be realized 
only by a method which combines the two methods." — 
{Cousin.) 

Instruction is often defectiv-e at two points of capital im; 
portance. 

1. The resolution of complex wholes, even into their 
proximate elements, is very imperfect. 

2. Keconstruction into definite wholes is usually very in- 
complete. 

The chief cause of the first defect is the use of words de- 
void of content; the remedy is obvious. 

The cause of the second defect is the lack of the construct- 
ive efibrt; the remedy is reproduction by recitation, by ex- 
amination, by composition, etc. 

172. This law of the genesis of our knowledge from the 
vague to the definite was first formulated by Leibnitz, and 
may be represented as follows:* 



♦See Thomson, Laws of Thought, pp. 91-93 ; Hamilton, Lectures, Vol. II., pp. 112, 
et .seti. ; Davis, The Theory of Thoncjht, pp. 30-34. 



63 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

( Obscure 



Presentations are -i [ Confused ^ inadequate 

I Adequate j 
1- t J I Perfect. 



I Intuitive 
I Symbolic 

A presentation is obscure when the impression is so faint 
that we can not distini^uish it from other impressions. 

Our thought is clear when we can distinguish any wliole 
from other wholes. 

Clear presentations are first confused and then distinct. 
When we can not tell the marks by which we distinguish one 
whole from another, the ]iresentation is confused ; when we 
are able to detect these marks, the presentation is distinct. 

Distinct presentations are inadequate when the marks we 
detect are insufficient in number or importance to identify 
the things represented; they are adequate when the last 
analysis has been made and all the marks discovered.* 

Distinct presentation may be intuitive or symbolic. We 
think the word mother intuitively when it calls up the im- 
age of the person concerned ; but when this word does not 
thus call up an image it is used merely as a symbol. 

Our knowledge is ^er/d<?^ when it is clear ^ distinct, ade- 
•qucite and intuitive. 

This analysis shows the importance of several things: 

1. Of tjivino: a fit and full content to each word. This 
may be done by object-lessons, by illustrations, by defini- 
tions, by verbal descriptions, etc. 

2. Of recitations, reviews, examinations, language-les- 
sons, discussions, compositions, essays, drawing, etc. 

3. Of requiring pupils to give concrete illustrations of all 
general statements, abstract truths and laws. 

The reform in teaching ascribed to Coraenius, Ratke and 
Pestalozzi, consisted, in substance, in making presentations 
adequate and intuitive. 



16. *" Perhaps we have a nearly adequate knowledge of a chess board, its defini- 
tion consisting of so few niarlcs, and they so nearly ultimate and simple : a square 
composed of sixty-four equal s(iuares of alternately opposite colors."— (Davis, T/ie 
Theory of Tlionght.) 



SOME ANTAGONISMS. 63 



Some Antagonisms, 



173. " Knowledge and Feelings, — Perception and Sensa- 
tion, though always eo-existent, are always in the inverse 
ratio of each other. "* 

If the act of vision is accompanied by great pleasure it 

* gives but little knowledge. And in general, the senses that 

yield us most pleasure or pain gives us the least knowledge. 

It is on this principle that brilliant experiments are the 
least instructive; and that a nice discrimination of sounds 
preoccupies the mind against any melod}^ that they might 
produce. 

Deep feeling and clear thinking thus mutually exclude 
each other. 

174. The condition most favorable for intellectual work 
is, in the words of Mr. Bain, " Concentration by neutral ex- 
citement. " " The true excitement * * is what grows 
out of the very subject itself, embracing and adhering to 
that subject." "The moment of delicate discrimination is 
the moment when the intellectual force is dominant; emo- 
tion spurns nice distinctions, and incapacitates the mind for 
feeling them. The quiescence and stillness of the emotions 
enables the mind to give its full energies to the intellectual 
processes generally. " (pp. 33, 34.) 

Many important truths flow from this doctrine: 

1. Amusement should be distinguished from instruction. 

2. Extremes of feeling, either of pleasure or pain, are 
V. hostile to intellectual improvement. Pupils laboring under 

emotional excitement of any sort can not maintain an inter- 
est in study. 



♦Hamilton, Metaphysics, p. 33C. See also, Mansel, Metaphijsics, pp. 68, 70, 77 ; 
Bain. The Senses and the Intellect, pp. 392-394 ; Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 17, 
29, 37 ; 8pencer, Fnncij)les of Tsychology , pp. 98-99. 



64 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

3. Serenity of spirit and physical comfort, are two condi- 
tions of good school work. 

4. Fear, diffidence, mental anxieties, etc., should modify 
a teaclier's judgment of a pupil's performances. 

5. Appeals to the eye in tlie way of illustration may be a 
detriment instead of a help. " The mere experimentalist," 
says Mr. Bain, " is most likely to fall into the error of miss- 
ing the essential condition of science as reasoned truth; not 
to speak of the danger of making the instruction an affair of 
sensation, glitter, or pyrotechnic show. " (p. 298.) 

175. " In the development of our faculties there are ten- 
dencies in some sort opposed to each other, and, u]> to a cer- 
tain point, mutually exclusive. Tiiat is, the excessive use of 
one faculty may com))roniise the power of another faculty. 
It is thus for example with attention and reflection, faculties 
that might be called outioard attention and inward atten- 
tion. "* 

From this ]ioint of view it is worth while to consider 
whether object-teaching and science culture in general, wlien 
made a prominent factor in education, may not be favorable 
to shallow thinking. 

176. " A similar opposition sometimes exists between 
the iudgment and the imagination. It is the first of these 
faculties that has to correct the errors of the second; but a 
very marked predominance of the judgment often quenches 
the imagination just as the supremacy of the imagination 
may benumb the judgment. f A man will be a mathema- 
tician or a poet according as he is governed by his judg- 
ment or by his imagination. ":}: 

177. " The perfection of man as an end, and the perfec- 
tion of man as a mean or instrument, are not only not the 

*Barou Roger de Guimps, La PhUosop/de ei la Pratique de L' Jsklucation, p. 24. 

17. t" Nothing is more dangerous to reason tlian the flights of imagination, and 
nothing has been the- occasion of more mistal^es among philosophers. Men of 
bright fancies may, in this respect, be compared to those angels whom the Scrip- 
tures represent as covering their eyes with their wings."— {Hamilton.) 

^bid„ p. 25. 



SOME ANTAGONISMS. 65 

same, they are, in reality, generally opposed. And as these 
two perfections are different, so the training requisite for 
their acquisition is not identical, and has, accordingly, been 
distinguished by different names. The one is styled Liberal, 
the other Professional education. " — {IlamiUon.^ 

This antagonism is especially noticeable under the follow- 
ing conditions: 

1. When a liberal education is not supplemented by some 
form of professional training. There may be breadth of 
learning and depth of culture, but not that specialization 
that fits a man for earning his daily bread. 

2. When there is specialization without breadth; as when 
a man learns a profession and is not liberally educated; or 
as when he studies a profession during the limited period of 
his general education. 

The only relief from this antagonism would seem to be to 
make the learning of a profession subordinate to a liberal 
education. 

ITS. The requirements of an examination may be op- 
posed to the true purposes of education; and vice versa. 

When much is made to depend upon the results of an ex- 
amination, to jmss becomes the end of study, and teachers 
will shape their instructions accordingly. In this way edu- 
cation becomes subordinate to examinations and is moulded 
by them. 

In competitive examinations, as for the civil service, a 
special kind of learning and of ability is brought into requi- 
sition; and if such a s)'stem becomes general it will tend fo 
divert education from its liberal aims. 

170. As the intension and the extension of a term are in 
the inverse ratio of each other; so in education the multipli- 
cation of studies is hostile to depth of scholarship. 

In prescribing courses of study, two things seem to be very 
generally assumed: 

1. That the pupil will make no considerable advances in 
knowledge after he has left school ; and, 

2: That consequently, the schools must teach at least a 



66 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

little of all the subjects that have received a distinctive 
name. 

The truer doctrine would seem to be that a thoroughly 
good knowledge of a subject will predispose a pupil to mas- 
ter some related subjects by his own self- activities, and so 
tend to prolong the period of learning by creating a consti- 
tutional desire to know, and by giving to the mind a clear 
consciousness of its ability to do independent work; and that 
at any rate, a thorough knowledge of a few subjects is far 
better than a superficial knowledge of many subjects. 

This antagonism appears in a very specific form in the 
matter of reading. The newspaper is the type of extensive 
reading; and a book, that in Bacon's phrase is to be "chewed 
and digested, " is the type of intensive reading. It is not to 
be doubted, I think, tliat the current newspaper reading has 
a direct tendency to corrupt that intensive reading which is 
essential to intellectual culture. It would seem to be the 
duty of the schools to emphasize the art of reading proper. 

180. " There is a natural antagonism between active 
study and active digestion. A nourishing meal indisposes a 
healthy person to active mental exertion; and, vice versa, 
active study or mental excitement takes away appetite; or at 
least enfeebles the digestive power for a time. " — {Lincoln, 
School and Industrial Hygiene, p. 19.) 

This principle warns us against attempting to do intellec- 
tual work while the digestive power is in progress; and is a 
sufficient argument in favor of a long intermission at noon. 

There is also suggested the broader antagonism between 
physical toil and mental toil; an antagonism that involves 
jtlmost a mutual exclusion. 

Normal physical vigor, the result of normal feeding and 
normal exercise, is a prerequisite to normal mental health 
and vigor; but over-feeding, physical grossness and athleti- 
cism are the natural enemies of intellectual excellence. 



MOTIVE, WILL, CONCENTRATION, ACQUISITION. 67 



Motive, Will, Concentration and 
Acquisition* 



181. When Instruction is a rational art it is a complex 
process liavine^ at least four distinct stages tliat occur in the 
following order: 

I. II. III. IV. 

i _ \ 1. Actual. 1 

. ( Concentration. ) . f Acquisition, 
. Will. A [A 

( (Attention.) ) < Retention. 



Motives, -i 



Pleasure. - 

' 2. In prospect. 

I 3. In prospect. 
I Pain. -I 
[ ( 4. Actual. 



1(5 



(Memory.) 



This formula may be interpreted by the teacher as follows : 
" To instruct is to cause the pupil to gain some permanent 
mental acquisition; the immediate condition of this effect is 
a concentration of the mental powers on a specific subject; 
this withdrawal of the mind's activities from all competing 
exercises is to be accomplished by an act of the will; and to 
determine an act of the will I must supply some motive. 
Hence the success of my art depends upon a deft handling 
of motives." 

182. The very possibility of education is dependent on. 
tlie power of mental retentiveness; and the paramount ques- 
tion in educational science is how this power may be turned 
to the best account. Of this faculty Mr. Bain says: It is 
the one " that most of all concerns us in the work of education. 
On it rests the possibility of mental growth; in other words, 
capabilities not given by nature. -^ * * All improve- 
ment in the art of teaching depends on the attention we give 
to the various circumstances that facilitate acquirement, or 
lessen the number of repetitions for a given effect. — {Educa- 
tion as a Science, pp. 20-21.) 



*Tliis is scarcely more than a summary of Chapter III., Bain's Education as a 

Science. 

9 



68 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOOTRINE. 

From the abuse of the memorizing process in the old edu- 
cation, this faculty has fallen into discredit, and it has become 
fashionable to speak slightingly of this function of the in- 
telligence. 

Mr. Bain says " the plastic or retentive function is the 
very highest energy of the brain, the consummation of nerv- 
ous activity. To drive home a new bent, to render an im- 
pression self-sustaining and recoverable, uses up (we may sup- 
pose) more brain force than any other kind of mental 
activity." 

183. It is evident that for the highest exercise of this 
faculty certain physical conditions must be fulfilled. These 
are: A plentiful supply of food; exercise; time for diges- 
tion; rest; and turning the nutrition towards the brain. 

The plastic power of the mind is at its best in the early 
part of the day, two or three liours after the first meal. After 
a rest and a second meal there is another period favorable to 
acquisition. " When the edge of this is worn off, there may, 
after a pause, be another bout of application, but far inferior 
to the first or even the second." (p. 26.) 

184. " The one circumstance that sums up all the mental 
aids to plasticity is concentration. A certain expenditure 
of nervous power is involved in every adhesion, every act of 
impressing the memory * * ; and the more the better. 
^This supposes, however, that we should withdraw the forces, 
for a time, from every other competing exercise." (p. 27.) 

Memory, then, is dependent on concentration. But con- 
centration, in turn, depends on the will; and the will is 
stimulated by motive; so that in teaching, the skillful adjust- 
ment of motives becomes a fine art and the very turning point 
of success. 

185. "Coming to the influences of concentration, we as- 
sign the first place to intrinsic charm, ov pleasure in the act 
itself. * * * * A gentle pleasure that for a time con- 
tents us, there being no great temptation at hand, is the best 
foster mother of our efibrts at learning. Still better, if it be 
a growing pleasure; a small beginning, with a steady in- 



MOTIVE, WILL, CONCENTRATION, ACQUISITION. 69 

crease, nev^er too absorbing, is the best of all stimulants to 
mental power." (p. 29.) 

As the heat of a Jflame keeps up the process of combustion; 
so the pleasure coming from intellectual activity becomes a 
motive to continue it. 

Teachers may avail themselves of this important principle 
by bringing forward as early as possible the fruit-bearing 
stage of study, — the period when the pupil begins to derive 
profit from his labor. 

It is an error, however, to assume that all pupils may be 
made to employ their self-activities by virtue of this intrinsic 
cliarin, or that all studies will yield it. It is as unreasonable 
to assume that mental activity may always be pleasurable as 
that physical activity is so. In either case, pleasure will 
begin to abate when w^eariness sets in. 

It is also an error to suppose that pleasure in general is 
conducive to intellectual activity. "The law of the mutual 
exclusion of great pleasure and great intellectual exertion 
forbids the employment of too much excitement of any kind 
when we aim at the most exacting of all mental results— the 
forming of new adhesive growths. * * * * The true 
excitement for the purpose in view is what grows out of the 
very subject itself, embracing and adhering to that subject." 
(pp. 29, 33.) 

186. " JS^ext to pleasure in the actual, as a concentrating 
motive, is pleasure in prospect, the learning of what is to 
bring us some future gratification. This stimulus has the 
inferiority attaching to the idea of pleasure as compared with 
the reality." (p. 30.) 

On this principle depends the action of prizes, scholar- 
ships, honors, promotions, etc. 

187. Another motive to concentration is the spirit of rival- 
ry, or the desire to excel. Competition gives a zest to toil and 
seems to gather up the energies for a determined effort. 
Class instruction affords an opportunity to employ this mo- 
tive with good effect. 

Up to this point, the motives to concentration have been 
attractive; the pupil has endured toil either for some pleas- 
ure mingled with it, or for some pleasure just beyond it. 



70 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

188. We now cross the line separating pleasure from dis- 
comfort and come to motives that are impulsive. The pupil 
is here between two disagreeable alternatives, and he recoils 
from the more disagreeable and accepts the one he dislikes 
the least. 

In Prussia, the student has his choice between maintaining 
himself with credit for one year in the highest class but one in 
the Gymnasium, with one year's military service in the town 
in which he lives; and serving as a common soldier for three 
years in a barrack. Mr. Latham remarks (p. 63) tliat by this 
means " the schoolmaster is supplied with a more powerful 
engine to enfoi'ce obedience than has ever been placed in the 
hands of any other scholastic bod3\" But he adds: " The 
masters complain that seventy-five per cent, of the boys leave 
directly the desired exemption is obtained." 

189. The motives that may be grouped under the head 
we are now considering are: Apprehensions of the results 
of impending examinations; fear of the loss of social or class 
standing; reproof in various forms and degrees. 

It is an error to think that all pupils, or even the greater 
part of them, come witliin the range of the higher motives. 
Dr. Whewell says: "There can be no culture without some 
labor and effort; to some persons, all labor and effort are 
unwelcome; and such persons can not be educated at all 
without putting some constraint upon their inclinations." 
(p. 107.) 

But it may reasonably be expected that by the operation 
of the lower motives, some of the pupils last described will 
come within the play of the higher motives. 

190. There is another motive to concentration, of a higher 
order than any of those already mentioned, though I think it 
falls below the line just traced. I mean a sense of duty un- 
accompanied by any actual pleasure or even expectation of 
pleasure. In this case the choice seems to be between the 
doing of a thing in itself disagreeable and the unhappiness 
that would follow the non-performance of a duty. Such per- 
sons are said to act from the sense of " moral obligation." 



MEMORY, RELATED TO PROCESS OF ELABORATION. 71 



On Memory as Related to the Process of 
Elaboration, 



101. A dominant conception in education is that of 
growth. The mind is not a capacity to be filled, but is rather 
a living organism that transforms aliment into structure and 
gains successive increments of power as a working instru- 
ment. Recollecting that mental phenomena can be described 
only by the use of analogies, we may say that the mind is 
nourished by its appropriate food; that this food, in order to 
communicate growth and strength, must pass through a proc- 
ess of mental digestion; and that finally it must be actually 
incorporated into the living organism. The working up of 
crude aliment into the refined materials fit for mental growth 
is elaboration.* 

192. Four distinct mental acts precede this process of 
elaboration, and are necessary preparations for it: (1) acqui- 
sition; (2) retention; (3) reproduction; (4) re-presentation. 

Acquisition is the act by which an object is brought for 
the first time within the sphere of the mind's activities. The 
familiar type of this process is " acquiring knowledge " from 
observation, from teachers, or from books. 

The act or power by which the mind holds, and thus pre- 
serves, the knowledge it has once acquired, is retention or 
memory. " What at any moment we really know, or are 
really conscious of, forms an almost infinitesimal fraction of 
what at any moment we are capable of knowing." — {^Hamil- 
ton.) 

Reproduction is the '' faculty of calling out of unconscious- 
ness into living consciousness the materials laid up by the 



♦This conception of organic growtli underlies Pestalozzianism. See Roger de 
Gninips, Histoire de Pestalozzi (Lausanne, 1874) ; and La Philosophie et la Pratique de 
V Education (Paris, 1881). 



72 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

conservative faculty, or memory." — {Hamilton.) When this 
act is exercised under the direction of the will, it is recollec- 
tion. 

But knowledge that has been acquired, retained and repro- 
duced, may be brought anew before the mental vision for 
analysis and examination. This art is re-presentation. 

"In the fifth place, these four acts of acquisition, conser- 
vation, reproduction, and re-presentation, form a class of 
faculties which we may call subsidiary, as furnishing the 
materials to a higher faculty, the function of which is to 
elaborate these materials. ***** This faculty is 
thought proper." — {Hamilton.) 

193. The fact that knowledge, after having been originally 
acquired, is stored up for future examination and study, im- 
plies that, as first received, it is unfit for the purposes of 
mental growth, and that it needs to be re-presented to the 
mind. The notion that the elaboration of knowledge must 
proceed pari passu with its acquisition, is a very crude and 
erroneous one. 

Memory will hold in store many things that are imperfect- 
ly understood :''* formulas whose content is but obscurely seen ; 
abstract truths that await explication; definitions that are to 
be made clear; sentences that do not transmit the thought of 
the author and are thus waiting to be interpreted; empty 
words that are to be filled with a content; isolated facts whose 
relations are to be determined. 

The dogma that we should commit to memory only what 
has been understood is scarcely less absurd than to say that 
onl}'^ food which has been digested should be committed to 
the stomach. As a fact, food is talcen into the stomach that 
it may be digested; and it is equally a fact that the materials 
of thought must be firmly held within the range of the mind's 
activities as the essential condition of being elaborated. The 
only question would seem to be whether this material should 
be loosely and uncertainly held, or whether it should he fixed 
in a definite form of expression. Where it is expected that the 
mind is to gain possession of fruitful truths through the 
interpretation of language, memorizing in exact form is by 
all means the best. 



18. *A thing is understood when the mind has seen its relations to other 
things and to the whole of which it is a part ; or when it has been brought under 
some higher generalization. 



MEMORY, RELATED TO PROCESS OF ELABORATION. 73 

194. Under the conception that the largest factor in edu- 
cation is observation, and that thinking depends mainly up- 
on a stimulation of the senses, it must necessarily happen 
that the functions of memory should be degraded; but under 
the conception that the materials for thought are not sensa- 
tions, but notions, and that the processes of thinking are 
often automatic and unconscious,* the functions of this 
faculty will be exalted. 

In the old education, through the influence of religious 
teaching and the superstitious veneration of books, memoriz- 
ing became a vice by making the form of more account than 
the content, or rather by divorcing form from content; by a 
natural recoil from the old error the new education has fallen 
into the more serious error of telling instead of instructing.f 

195. If it be asked whether a pupil should memorize what 
he may not at the time understand, the answer must be in 
the affirmative. And if it be asked whether this memoriz- 
ing may precede the understanding by an indefinite interval, 
the reply must still be affirmative, provided the matter be 
within the probable range of the pupil's power of understand- 
ing. 

In many cases the understanding of a truth is as the morn- 
ing light that " shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 
The growth of conceptions from confused to perfect is else- 
where illustrated. (§ 172.) 

196. What is to be memorized is often a matter of deli- 



19. *" I question whether the persons who think most— that is, have the most con- 
scious thought pass through their minds— necessarily do more mental worli. The 
tree you are sticlving in will be growing when you are sleeping. So with every new 
idea that is planted in a real thinker's mind : it will be growing when he is lea.st 
conscious of it. An idea in the brain is not a legend carved in a marble slab : it is 
an impression made on a living tissue, which is the seat of active nutritive processes. 
Shall the initials I carved in bark increase from year to year with the tree? And 
shall not my recorded thought develop into new forms and relations with my g ow- 
ing brain? "—(0. W. Holmes, quoted from Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 534. See 
also Hamilton's Metaphysics, Lecture XVIII.) 

20. tinstruction : an in-bmlding. The term imi)lies the organization in the pupil's 
mind of a body of truth articulate in outline and fit to receive growing accumula- 
tions. There are implied a definiteuess and a firmness that can come only from 

. some exactness in memorizing. 



74 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

cate discrimination. It is sheer waste of time and mental 
effort to commit some things to memory. The following 
categories will include most of the cases where formal mem- 
orizing is legitimate. 

1. Certain useful facts, tables, formulas, rules, etc.;* such 
as the succession of Presidents, important dates, certain 
weights and measures, (a + b)^ = a- + 2 ab + b'^ , etc., etc. 

2. Examples of fine diction, where tlie form is co-ordinate 
with the thought; such as short yjoems in which there is 
great unity of thought; elegant extracts in prose and verse; 
scriptures, liturgies, etc. 

3. Fruitful truths, statements of principles or of doctrines, 
that will unfold under reflection or experience, or will serve as 
nuclei to organize growing knowledge.f 

4. Definitions and technical terms that guard the entrance 
to every new domain of knowledge. 

In all these cases the pupil may have only the empty forms 
of knowledge. But if so, the fault is due to some one's 
stupidity. As a rule, however, it is as safe to trust these 
forms to find their content, as to trust loose facts to embody 
themselves in intelligible forms. 

197. Mr. Latham;}; distinguishes three varieties, or bet- 
ter, degrees of memory, as follows: 

1. '' The Portative Memory, which simpl}'- conveys mat- 
ter, and whose only aim, like that of a carrier, is to deliver' 
the parcel as it was received." 



21. *" Boys can easily learn to apply niles, before they can easily learn to niider- 
stand them ; and are likely to understand them the better, from beinj; already fa- 
miliar with the mode in which they are applied. The memory may be brought into 
extensive action before the understanding can, and may be made to assist power- 
fully in unfolding the understanding, by supplying it with materials to operate upon. 
If no boy was allowed to learn anything of which he did not, at the time, understand 
the reason, no general system of teaching could be applied ; the progress of learning 
must be slow and irregular ; and after all, there is no ground to believe that boys so 
taught would understand their rules better than those who begin by applying them, 
and end by understanding the reasons of them, for it can admit of no doubt that to 
understand the rules and their reasons at a subsequent jjeriod is a necessary portion of 
the system of education to which they belong."— (Dr. Whewell on Cambridge Educa- 
tion, p. 103.) 

22. tWe may collect specimens and then hunt up a classification for them ; or we 
may take a ready-made classification and then hunt for specimens to exemplify 
them. In most cases the latter is the better plan. 

I^On the Action of Examinations, pp. 222-223. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF STUDIES. 75 

2. "The Analytical Memory, which is exercised when the 
mind furnishes a view of its own, and thereby holds together 
a set of impressions selected out of a mass. Thus a barrister 
strings together the material facts of his case, and a lecturer 
those of his science, by regarding their bearing on what he 
wants to establish." 

3. " The Assimilative Memorj', which absorbs the matter 
into the system, so that the knowledge assimilated becomes 
p^rt of the person's own self, like that of his name, or of a 
familiar language." 

4. " The Index Memory, that which does not recollect 
the matter itself, but only where to find it." 



The Educational Value of Studies. 



198. The studies employed for educational purposes have 
been distinguished as Permanent and Progressive."^ " To 
the former class belong those portions of knowledge which 
have long taken their permanent shape; ancient languages 
with their literature, and long-established demonstrated 
sciences. To the latter class belong the results of the mental 
activit}^ of our own times; the literature of our own age, and 
the sciences in which men are making progress from day to 
day." 

The principal Permanent Studies are: Greek and Latin; 
Arithmetic and Geometry; Mechanics and Hydrostatics; 
Grammar, Rlietoric and Deductive Logic. 

The principal Progressive Studies are : Modern Languages 
and Literatures; the Sciences of classification; Geology and 
Chemistry; Linguistics and Ethnography; Philosophy, In- 
ductive Logic and Sociology. 



*I borrow this classification from Dr. Wliewell, On Cambridge Education, London, 
1850. 

10 



76 OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 

199. The Permanent Studies connect us with the past, and 
are the subjects best fitted to cultivate the faculties of Lan- 
guage and Reason. They should form the basis of a liberal 
education. 

'' Of the two classes of studies above mentiond, the Perma- 
nent and the Progressive Studies, the former are the most es- 
sential as parts of education ; and must be mastered before the 
otliers are entered on, in order to secure such an intellectual 
culture as we aim at. '^ * * The Progressive Sciences 
are to be begun towards the end of a liberal education. On 
the other hand, the Permanent Studies, Classical Literature 
and Solid Reasoning, are fundamental parts of a liberal educa- 
tion, and can not be dispensed with. Modern Science and 
Philosophy ought to be introduced into education so far as to 
show their nature and principles; but they do not necessarily 
nija.keany considerable or definite part of it." — {Dr. Whewell.) 

200. The Progressive Studies connect us with the present 
and the future, and iit us to participate in the general for- 
ward movement of the times. Such of them as embody large 
measures of permanent truth and are freest from individual 
caprice and fancy should form an essential part of a liberal 
education. 

" No one can be considered as furnished with the 
knowledge, tastes and sympathies which connect the succes- 
sive generations of liberally educated men, who is not famil- 
iar with Homer and the Greek tragedians, as well as with 
Virgil, Homer, and Ovid. These two great families of 
writers, the Greek and the Roman classics, form the intel- 
lectual ancestors of the cultivated minds of modern times; 
and we must be well acquainted with their language, their 
thoughts, their forms of composition, their beauties, in order 
that we may have our share in that inheritance by which men 
belong to the intellectual aristocracy of mankind. The study 
of these title deeds and archives of the culture of our race 
must be a permanent portion of the best education of men as 
long as the tradition of such culture is preserved upon the 
face of the earth." — {Dr. Wkeivell.*) 

201. There are some studies that end in mere knowing, 
and there are others that leafl to doing. The former may be 



*0n Cambridge JSducation, pp. 79-80. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF STUDIES. 77 

called Icnowledge subjects, and the latter art subjects.'^ 
"There are studies which aim at endowing the student with 
a power which he can be called on to put in practice, and 
others which store and cultivate the mind, but convey no 
new power that can be exercised." 

History, Geography, Literature ?iX\^^c\Q,nQ,Q?iYe knowledge 
subjects; Mathematics, Language, Grammar, are art sub- 
jects. 

This distinction is valuable on the following grounds : 

1. Examinations in studies of the first class are not valid 
tests of ability. Such subjects may produce high cultivation, 
but when the knowledge they impart is reproduced it is a 
trustworthy indication only of a good memory. 

2. Examinations in art subjects are trustworthy indica- 
tions of ability, because they permit a student to use his 
knowledge in the production of results. 

3. In competitive examinations the introduction of mere 
knowledge subjects tends to destroy their value as real tests 
of fitness. 

202. Subjects may be classified with reference to the in- 
terest they awaken in human heings, in external oljects, in 
abstractions. The human element in history, poetry, poli- 
tics, sociology, etc., has a strong attraction for some minds; 
others are predisposed to find enjoyment in natural science, 
archaeology, etc.; and still others have a predilection for 
mathematical or philosophical abstractions. Some studies 
embrace principally one of these interests; some represent a 
combination of two of them in nearly equal degrees; and 
others embrace all the three elements, but in different de- 
grees. — {Zatham.-f) 

The following table exhibits the relations in which several 
of the more important studies stand to the three kinds of 
interest noted: 



♦This distinction I borrow from Kev. H. Latham, On The Action of Examinations, 
Cambridge, 1877. 

iOn ITie Action of Exatninations, pp. 317-20. 



78 



OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 



^ 



History 

Poetry, 

Politics, 

Political Economy, I ^ 

Classics, 






J 



Natural Science, 
Archaeology, 
Fine Art, 



1 


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V. 


J 


W 



Natural Science, 

Matliematics, 

Metapliysics, 

Poitical Economy 

Chissics, 

Linguistics, I 
riiiVology. f 



This classification is of value on the following grounds: 

1. It points out certain antagonisms, as between classical 
s'tudv and the study of natural science; or between literature 
and the sciences of observation. 

2. It warns against a following after predilections, and 
points out complementary studies. That a student has a 
strong liking for one study and an equally strong dislike for 
another, may be the best of reasons why he should withdraw 
attention from the first and give it to the second. ■^^ 

203. Another useful distinction is this: The knowledge 
of some subjects is accessible only through language; if all 
existing records of this knowledge were to perish, the knowl- 
edge itself would be forever irrecoverable. History and 
Literature are examples of these subjects. 



23. *" I believe that mental physiology will one day be recognized practically in 
education. The time may come wlien certain peculiarities of mind may be recog- 
nized as ' indicating ' or ' counter-indicating ' in medical phraseology, the use of 
certain kinds of mental exertion. A science of observation may be prescribed in 
one case, some study which enforces concentration of attention in another, while 
one which involves ' introspection ' may be strictly prohibited in a third. We may 
even have hereafter a medical branch of the educational profession, we may have 
persons who shall make it their business to understand mental constitutions, and 
to advise parents as to the course to be followed witii youths of peculiar or slightly 
morbid turns of mind."— Latham, On the Aclion of Examinations, pp. 317-18. 

Lord Bacon is almost as explicit to the same effect : " Histories make men Wise ; 
Poets Witty ; TheMathematicks Subtill ; Naturall Philosophy deepe ; Morall Grave ; - 
Logick and Rhetorick Able to Contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no 
Stond or Impediment in the Witt, but may be wrought out by Fit Studies ; Like as 
Diseases of the Body may have appropriate Exercises. Bowling is good for the 
Stone and the Reines ; Shooting for the Lungs and Breast ; Gentle Walking for the 
Stomacke ; Riding for the Head ; And the like. So if a man's Wit be Wandering, 
let him Study the Mathematicks ; For in Demonstrations, if his Wit be called away 
never so little, he must begin again. If his Wit be not Apt to distinguish or find 
differences, let him Study the Schoolemen ; For they are Cymini secfores. If he be 
not Apt to beat over INIatters, and to call up one Thing, to Prove and Ulustrate an- 
other, let him Study the Lawyers Cases. So every Defect of the Mind may have 
Speciall Receit."— (0/ studies.) 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF STUDIES. 79 

There is other knowledge, the entire reproduction of wliich 
though practically impossible is yet conceivable. Geogra- 
phy, Astronomy, and the Natural Sciences are examples ofsuch 
subjects. Admitting the possibility uf the ultimate recovery 
of this knowledge, it would require the co-operation of 
numberless minds through succeeding ages. 

There is still other knowledge whose recovery or reproduc- 
tion b}^ the independent activity of one's own mind is further 
within the range of possibility. Mathematics, Philosophy, 
Grammar, Rhetoric, are examples of subjects of this third 
class. They differ from the subjects last mentioned, in the 
fact that their subject matter is easily accessible. 

In other words, there is some knowledge that can be ob- 
tained only at second hand, through language; other knowl- 
edge, small portions of whicli can be reproduced by the 
individual; and still other knowledge whose reproduction is 
comparatively easy. 

204. Studies may be farther distinguished with reference 
to the mental faculties that they severally cultivate. While 
every subject, properly studied, will undoubtedly affect the 
mind as a whole; still it is true that certain faculties are 
called into freer exercise by some studies than by others. 
Thus, as a general truth, Language cultivates the Memory, 
the Sciences of Classiiication the Observation, and Mathe- 
matics the Judgment. 

It is not to be supposed that any study is exclusive in its 
effects, that it affects certain modes of mental activity and 
leaves other modes unaffected. Mr. Bain's statement that 
mathematics " does not teach us how to observe, how to 
generalize, how to classify," does not mean that mathemati- 
cal study gives no employment to these functions of the 
mind, but that they are relatively unaffected. Perhaps in 
educational science we have no specifics. The really im- 
portant fact is that a given study has a high value for one 
kind of discipline and a low value for another kind; and that 
a normal and vigorous mental life requires a mixed diet. 

205. One of the most promising fields for the investiga- 
tions of the educational philosopher is the one indicated in 
this chapter. One phase of the educational problem has been 
very thoroughly studied, — the forms and laws of mental 



80 



OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. 



growth. Our present need is a Descriptive Pedagogics, or a 
science of educational values, whicli shall expound the kind 
and relative amount of value that may be attributed to the 
several topics in our curriculum. 

206. The following table is intended to suggest a mode 
of notation that might be employed for the purpose mentioned 
above: 



STUDIES. 


Per. 


Pro. 


K. 


A. 


M. 


I. 


0. 


C. 


J. 


Geography 




Pro. 


K. 




M. 


I. 








Arithmetic 


Per. 






A. 










J. 


Zoology 




Pro. 


! K. 








0. 


C. 




Grammar 


Per. 






A. 








C. 


J. 


History 




Pro. 


K. 




M. 


I. 








Latin 


Per. 






A. 


M. 








J. 


Chemistry 




Pro. 


K. 




M. 


0. 






Natural Philosophy . . 


Per. 






A. 










J. 



These descriptions may be read as follows: " Geography 
is a progressive study, a knowledge subject, and cultivates the 
memory and the imagination." 

" Arithmetic is a permanent study, an art subject, and 
trains the judgment." 

" Zoology is a progressive study, a knowledge subject, and 
teaches how to observe and to classify." 

Degrees of disciplinary value might be indicated by ex- 
ponents. 



OUTLINES 



iBfflllL Willi 



By W. H.' PAYNE, A, M„ 

PROFESSOK OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 




ADRIAN : 
CHARLES HUMPHREY. 

18S2. 



to 



I 



The Relation betiveen the Unirersiti/ a /id our Iligli 
Schools. 

Pp. 2G-14. Adriun: 1S71. 

:^ State Uniformitjj in Text-Boooh: Tlie Countij 
Supeiintendent Law. 

Pp. 11-4. Adrian: 1872. 

C/iapters on School Siipervmon. 

Pp. 215. Cincinnati: 1875. 

Historical Sl'etcli of the Puhlic Schools of the Citj/ 
Mr ran. 

Pp. 43. Adrian: 187fJ. 

To wliat Extent do our Schools Contribute to the 
Formation of Good Citize?is? 

Tlie Xature and Extent of tlie Provision made in 
Micliixjan for tlie Preparatorfj Training of 
Teachers. 

(Two discussions contained in the " Report of tlic State 
Board of Centennial Manaijers for the International Exhil)i- 
tion of 1870.") Pp. 107-158. Lansing: 1877. 

Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Science \ 
^and :^rt of Teacliing. 

Pp. 05. Adrian: 1879. -^ 

:^n Lntroduction, .Votes, References, a Monogmph 
'on Conienius, and a Bibliograplijj, contained 
in a reprint of the article '' Education" from 
tlie ninth edition of Encgcloprndia Britannica. 

Syracuse: 188(1. 

:4 Select List of Educational IVortcs, English, 
French and German. 

New York: 1881. 



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